The Department of Concept Development & Experimentation (CD & E) of Dutch Defense, is currently experimenting at WaterCampus demosite Wetsalt in Harlingen with a water management system that combines several innovative technologies. By clearing available salt water in mission areas on site, water supply routes need to be used less. This reduces the risk of attack during transport and reduces fuel consumption and harmful emissions. The system may possibly be used in the future in areas where water supply is a problem, but for the time being the experiments are primarily intended to gather knowledge.
Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Leidelmeijer, Senior Staff Officer CD & E: “Defense has opted for Wetsalt because here a constant supply of seawater, surface water and brine is available. This allows us to experiment 24 hours a day 7 days a week with desalting under real-life conditions. ”
Up to 100,000 liters of water per day
One of the technologies that the Defense organization is experimenting with in Harlingen is Multi Effect Membrane Distillation (MEMD). This ensures that the water is purified. The second technology, a Mobile Solar Plant combined with a Smart Power Bank, both from the company Bredenoort, ensures an efficient energy supply. The whole is housed as a system in a sea container. A single system will be able to purify up to 20,000, 40,000 or 100,000 water per day. At an average camp, large quantities of water are used, not only for drinking, but also for sanitation, kitchen and, for example, vehicle maintenance.
About Concept Development & Experimentation (CD & E)
CD & E is the organization for the Army, together with the knowledge centers, industry and knowledge partners outside Defense to develop innovations quickly and through experiments, so that units of the Army on missions are and remain dominant and relevant. The experiments at Wetsalt are an initiative of the Theme Team Water Fieldlab Smartbase, a team consisting of seven entrepreneurs from the water sector, representatives from Defense (Genius and Logistics) and representatives from the regional development companies (Innovation Quarter and NOM).
Living labs
For entrepreneurs who want to test their (water) technologies under realistic conditions, the four demo sites in the Northern Netherlands are the ideal place. They are so-called ‘living labs’ where real waste water is available. In addition to Wetsalt in Harlingen, there are facilities for the treatment of urban waste water (Wetterskip Fryslân, Leeuwarden), the treatment of waste water from hospitals (Antonius Ziekenhuis, Sneek) and the testing of sensor technologies (Sentec Glimmen). More information about the demo sites can be found here. Companies interested in the facilities can contact Jordi Moreno via j.moreno@cew-leeuwarden.nl or CEW via info@cew-leeuwarden.nl.
