2023-05-24 09:30:56
The sugar group Cristal Union, one of the main sugar producers in Europe, has set up with BWT France, a subsidiary of the Austrian group BWT (Best Water Technology), which offers its industrial customers products and water, a strategy for managing their water withdrawals, and solutions for limiting their water consumption at their production site in Bazancourt.
The group Cristal Union transforms each year the 13 million tonnes of beet of its cooperators into sugar, alcohol and bioethanol for industry and mass distribution. The industrial processes used to extract sugar from beets are very water-intensive. Indeed, during production, two stages of the sugar process are extremely water-intensive: the washing of the beets at the factory entrance and the extraction of the sugar from the beets.
To limit the water withdrawals necessary for these processes, the sugar group, with BWT France, has implemented a solution consisting of reusing the water naturally present in beets in large quantities (one beet contains around 70% water). . And thus take less and less water from the natural environment.
Concretely, Cristal Union has set up reverse osmosis units manufactured and installed by BWT : two osmosis units with pre-filtration and a recycling osmosis unit.
The water thus recovered during the sugar juice concentration and crystallization processes is therefore recovered and upgraded following being treated. These processes make it possible to continuously recover water and treat it to make distilled water, suitable for agricultural use, for example.
This presentation video provides a good understanding of the different stages of recovery and recovery of water extracted from beets, as well as the different tools put in place to recover and treat water from sugar processes:
The reuse of this recovered water is devoted to washing the beets and extracting the sugar.
Since 2011, nearly 400,000 cubic meters have been treated in this way each year at the Bazancourt site, or more than 4 million cubic meters of recycled water in total. On all Cristal Union sites, since the establishment of the partnership with BWT in 2009, the group has reduced its water withdrawals from the natural environment by nearly 57%.
A convincing example of a strategy for reducing water withdrawals, without reducing production. The sugar group is carrying out several projects simultaneously to continue improving its carbon footprint as a whole.
The company has modified its tools to reuse, every day, 100% of the water contained in the treated beets. At the end of the sugar beet season, excess water is stored in basins and used to irrigate surrounding agricultural plots. This makes it possible to support farmers locally in times of water shortage.
Still locally, the approach implemented by Cristal Union with the help of BWT enables the local industrial ecosystem to limit the withdrawal of water from the natural environment. Water savings estimated at one million cubic meters per year.
This example of an approach to improving the management of water used by industry is part of the long term. And on investments. Cristal Union has also announced new investments, to the tune of 100 million euros, to better store excess water, and spread it during periods of water deficit, when the earth needs it most.
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