H2O GmbH is a partner of the Blue Competence sustainability initiative

We are Alliance Member of the Sustainability Initiative Blue Competence. Blue Competence is an initiative of the VDMA for promoting and communication of sustainable solutions for the Mechanical Engineering Industry. By using the trademark “Blue Competence”, we commit ourselves to these twelve Sustainability Guidelines of the Mechanical Engineering Industry.

In a world of dwindling natural resources, taking environmental responsibility is absolutely essential. So that tomorrow's generations can live in a clean world, sustainability is playing an increasingly important role today.

Zero liquid discharge production with VACUDEST protects the environment and saves energy.

For a clean environment: VACUDEST enables the zero liquid discharge production

Global fresh water resources are becoming increasingly scarce, yet pollution in open waters continues to this day. The disposal of wastewater in many industries is a major problem for the environment. That’s why H2O GmbH pursues the vision to achieve zero liquid discharge in industrial production so that future generations can live in a clean environment.

Industrial wastewater consists of only a very small proportion of waste materials such as oils, fats and heavy metals. The water content is often more than 99 per cent. The task of the VACUDEST vacuum distillation systems from H2O GmbH is to separate this water from the impurities in as pure a form as possible. To do so, the system uses the principle of evaporation. The evaporation process makes the separated water so clean that it can be reused for high-grade surface finishing processes as in vehicle, furniture and window production. This saves an enormous amount of fresh water.

The impurities contained in the wastewater are concentrated in the evaporation residue and further processed by waste management facilities. This prevents pollutants from entering into the waters or the public sewer system. The result is zero liquid discharge in industrial production. Over 1,370 industrial productions around the world already take advantage of these benefits.

Energy recycling directs the energy of the steam back into the System.

Energy issues

Saving energy is one of the most important measures in tackling the environmental problems we face. It reduces operating costs and improves the carbon balance. Therefore H2O relies consistently on the process of direct vapour recompression to evaporate industrial wastewater since more than 30 years. Integrated energy recycling directs the heat of the steam back into the system. This reduces energy consumption by 95 per cent in comparison with atmospheric evaporation.

The individual components of the VACUDEST vacuum distillation systems are perfectly matched to one another. It was possible to reduce the energy consumption of a VACUDEST system by 28 per cent in the past ten years thanks to this perfect interplay and the technologies developed by H2O.

Zero liquid discharge

Vacuum evaporators have established themselves on the market as the most economical method of processing industrial wastewater and offer a real alternative to disposal and other processing methods. This form of water recycling allows productions to significantly reduce costs. In the case of larger systems, this can mean financial savings of several million euros within the space of ten years. It is not just the environment that benefits; industrial companies also benefit from efficient processes and Systems.