Let's Reuse Even Discarded Water... SK Ecoplant Develops Wastewater and Sewage Reuse Technology

On the 15th, SK ecoplant announced that it has developed a Circle-Sequence Reverse Osmosis (CSRO) technology, a sequential circular process reverse osmosis membrane technology that enables low-cost reuse of discharged sewage and wastewater, and has obtained patents and green technology certification.

CSRO is a technology that sequentially switches the supplied sewage and wastewater to the reverse osmosis membrane between forward and reverse directions, recirculating the concentrate within the process. The reverse osmosis membrane acts as a filter that removes chemicals and foreign substances from the discharged water.

The reuse recovery rate of sewage and wastewater in a typical reverse osmosis membrane process is usually designed at around 75%, but SK ecoplant applied CSRO to an operating sewage treatment plant and conducted pilot verification, achieving a maximum recovery rate of 97%. It also achieved more than a 10% reduction in power consumption compared to existing technologies.

Internal process view of SK ecoplant's sequential circular process reverse osmosis membrane (CSRO) wastewater treatment plant pilot test. Photo by SK ecoplant

SK ecoplant plans to actively commercialize the CSRO technology starting this year. As advanced industries including semiconductors develop, securing industrial water has become important, and thus the company views the growth potential of the sewage and wastewater reuse market highly.

First, it plans to maximize the advantages of CSRO, such as increasing the recovery rate of sewage and wastewater processes and reducing power and cleaning chemical usage, targeting major client business sites, and expand not only domestically but also overseas. It is expected that the existing technologies used in various high-purity industrial water production processes such as ultrapure water, power generation water, and process water can also be replaced.

Since entering the environmental business, SK ecoplant has been focusing on technology development by reviewing and securing various environmental business technologies. Efforts to advance the technology by applying AI (Artificial Intelligence) and DT (Digital Transformation) technologies are also underway. The company has also achieved results such as internalizing recycling technologies, including improving the recovery rate of rare metals from waste batteries.

Joa Jae-yeon, Head of SK ecoplant Environment BU, stated, “We will continue to activate technologies across all areas encompassing upstream and downstream of environmental businesses such as Water, Waste, and Battery,” and added, “We will contribute to transforming the foundation of the environmental business into a technology-based one.”