There can be no life without drinkable water. The New Orleans flood disaster effectively demonstrates how important clean drinking water actually is. JUDO plays a role is keeping this valuable good available. JUDO-Drinking water for 1.500 people
Turnkey sea-water desalination project for Greek island
The German export industry is currently enjoying a boom phase. JUDO Wasseraufbereitung GmbH based in Winnenden near Stuttgart has again managed to win a major contract for the supply of sea-water desalination units for export.
The Greek island of Ithaca, the birthplace of the legendary Greek hero, is to become the new home of the fourth turnkey sea-water desalination system supplied by the company for export. The system has been specifically engineered to meet the drinking water needs of over 1.500 citizens in the community of Stavros. The scope of the contract awarded, includes all earth work on site as well and power and incoming sea-water supply and has a total volume of approx 500.000 Euros. The system was supplied within an 8 week period.
Within the framework of an international tender, JUDO was able to convince the community of Stavros, following a long and intense study of bids from several interested parties, of its high levels of product and service compared to the many competitors tendering and was awarded the contract. The company CEO, Mr. Hartmut Dopslaff stated that the contract was not won on price alone but also on the fact that the family-owned company’s know how in this field, covering 20 years of experience with desalination plants played an important role in convincing the community to make this choice. The most important single factor, according to the CEO, was the fact that other reference objects were operating perfectly.
The system, consisting of over 10 metric tonnes of technology and automatic control units, is installed in 2 fully acclimatised 20’ containers. The unit delivers a round the clock water supply – 200.000 litres daily. The unit was designed with operational economy in mind and achieves production costs of an extremely low 80 cents per cbm.
Raw water is pumped straight out of the sea and runs through a first stage filtration before being passed on for desalination in a reverse osmosis unit. The state of the art membrane technology choosen by JUDO for this application reduces the high salt content of Mediterranean sea-water (42kg. per cbm) by more than 99%. In a final treatment process, the mineral content of the water is brought up to standard ensuring the drinking water supplied to the community not only meets with the requirements of the Greek drinking water standard but also that of the WHO.
The environmentally-friendly reverse-osmosis unit chosen by JUDO for this process presses sea-water through a semi-permeable membrane at a pressure of approx. 70 bar (as a comparison, car tyres are normally held at approx. 2 bar). Salts and minerals in solution in the sea-water are held back on the membrane and washed out back into the sea. The unit is fitted with an energy re-cycling turbine which ensures a 30% energy consumption saving. One of the major challenges mastered by JUDO here was ensuring an earthquake-proof construction.
The system is monitored constantly from a central station 10 kilometres from the installation itself. An additional direct communication line is set up to JUDO in Germany allowing them to monitor and interact with the unit directly from their Winnenden Head office at any time. Operational status is displayed on a multi-lingual touch screen display.
Hartmut Dopslaff also noted that JUDO works closely together with a global network of over 50 overseas distribution partners in 41 countries. The company is expecting notable growth rates this year supported to a large part by its export activities.
Picture: Signing the contract. JUDO-CEO Hartmut Dopslaff (left) and Ithaca’s mayor following the completion of formalities.
Picture: Installed JUDO sea-water desalination units
08.09.2010 / 02:09 
