Israeli sewerage experts team up with New York water firm to enter Chinese market
Aiming to bring innovative sewage solutions to China’s rapidly growing wastewater treatment market, Israel’s Emefcy is teaming up in a venture with New York-based RWL Water.
Emefcy will be collaborating with RWL Water, founded by Jewish-American businessman and philanthropist Ronald Lauder, to offer a range of packaged treatment plant solutions in China, the partners recently announced. Featuring Emefcy’s innovative membrane technologies, which demand 80% less energy than typical sewage plants, the packages will provide “plug-and-play” treatment options to remote villages around China, the partners said.
“The agreement will greatly simplify the deployment of Emefcy’s energy efficient, modular technology,” said Richard Irving, executive chairman of Emefcy. “With RWL Water’s assistance, we will be able to fast track the development of a complete, standardized, packaged treatment plant solution. By delivering a spectrum of packaged plant solutions, we can best meet the needs of our integrator partners and reduce the costs of installation.”
Moving forward together in China, Emefcy will be enlisting the engineering expertise of RWL Water, which has built more than 7,000 successful installations, in producing packaged sewage treatment plants for the Chinese market. RWL Water’s expertise in deploying scalable water treatment solutions will enable Emefcy to offer its four existing Chinese distribution partners a variety of options, including “fully containerized plug-and-play plants,” a statement from the companies said.
The packages will feature Emefcy’s Membrane Aerated Biofilm Reactor, an aeration-based technology capable of treating sewage while using 80% less energy than conventional plants and reducing sludge by up to 50%, according to the company.
At conventional facilities, wastewater is collected in large basins and aerated with compressors that require huge amounts of energy, Emefcy CEO Eytan Levy told The Jerusalem Post in January. The MABR technology, on the other hand, employs special water-tight membranes that enable the diffusion of oxygen from the atmosphere into the wastewater, without the need to use a high-energy compressor, he said.
Although the MABR technology is already on the market, Emefcy is also developing an Electrogenic Bio Reactor, which the company says will not only be capable of saving energy but will also produce power.
Thus far, Emefcy’s MABR system is up and running at a municipal treatment plant in St. Thomas, in the US Virgin Islands, as well as in facilities in Caesarea and Moshav Yogev, in Israel. In addition, the company has two sites under construction in Ethiopia – one in an Addis Ababa residential neighborhood and a second at Mekelle University’s Ayder Hospital in Tigray.
Prior to joining forces with RWL Water, Emefcy signed four distribution agreements with China Gezhouba Group Corporation in the Hubei province, Wuxi Municipal Design Institute in the Jiangsu province, Beijing Sinorichen Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. in Beijing and Jiangsu Jinzi Environmental Technology Company, Ltd. in the Jiangsu Province. Emefcy has also completed construction and started operations on a demonstration plant for Wuxi.
While RWL Water does not yet have a strong presence in China, the large corporation is aiming to leverage Emefcy’s market knowledge and network of distribution partners to promote its range of products, including a scalable desalination technology called Nirobox, the statement from the companies said.
“By leveraging the RWL Water brand, including our waste-to-energy solutions and its global stature, with Emefcy’s technical innovation and on-theground presence, we believe our shared prospects in China are outstanding,” said Henry Charrabe, president and CEO of RWL Water. “In fact, based on these compelling benefits, we see other significant and on-going opportunities for collaboration around the world.”