Rietland bvba has been participating in the HIGHWET project for the past two years. This is an FP7 project, an EU-funded project in which 3 European SMEs are supported with research in order to put new innovation products on the market.
In addition to Rietland, the Danish firm Kilian Water and the Spanish firm Sedaqua are involved in the project. The research was carried out by the University of Aarhus in Denmark and the Spanish research center Aimen.
The aim of the research was to develop a water purification system for highly polluted wastewaters, such as those that occur in the food industry. Since these are often large quantities of seriously polluted wastewater, reed beds often become too large and become too expensive for a company to place them.
Therefore, in the context of this FP7 project, the combination of an anaerobic digestion plant, followed by a reed bed, was considered. In this way, the system as a whole remains very low maintenance and energy efficient.