Arsenic pollution is one of the most dangerous forms of drinking water contamination. Some very high concentrations of arsenic occur in the groundwater in many regions of the United States, South America and Asia. Excessive arsenic levels are often found in Europe, too, for example in the U.K. LANXESS has developed an iron oxide called Bayoxide® E33 designed specifically for the removal of arsenic from drinking water and wastewater. The core of the system is a solid bed of iron oxide beads. The beads have finely structured surfaces that adsorb pollutants when contaminated water flows over them.

With offerings such as its Baypure product group, LANXESS provides innovative solutions for softening water in washing machines and dishwashers. Baypure envelops the calcium and magnesium ions dissolved in water, which can cause limescale deposits, and keeps them suspended. Baypure® DS 100 prevents limescale deposits and even softens existing scale. Applications include dissolving stubborn furring in drainage pipes, assisting oil extraction and preventing grayness in detergents.

As a consumer of water and manufacturer of products that purify water and treat wastewater, specialty chemicals company LANXESS is committed to using this valuable resource with the greatest care. For this reason, the company has made water – along with climate protection and education – one of the three central themes of its commitment to corporate responsibility to which both management and employees must measure up. The company declared 2010 the „LANXESS Water Year“.

The special rubber raw materials from the world’s largest manufacturer of synthetic rubber are also in demand on every continent for needs including drinking water. Simple, traditional rubber generally consists of a range of different components that can be gradually washed out by water. This results in the worn-out material sooner or later becoming brittle – and that means a leak is soon to appear.

Some substances in drinking water seals could also be problematic for an entirely different reason: They serve as nourishment for some bacteria. And a slimy bacteria-rich film in water lines isn’t only unsightly; it could also be harmful.

Special LANXESS rubber materials such as LCB (long chain branching)-EPDM, however, can help and be made into very elastic products. Another advantage of such materials is that they don’t become too soft even at high water temperatures and therefore remain more watertight.

Thanks to the cooperation between LANXESS and the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), around 25 schools with approximately 10,000 students in Tanzania are receiving a sufficient water supply and new sanitary facilities as well as education in health and personal hygiene. In those educational sessions, teacher, parents and students learn the right handling of water. In a special program that was developed by AMREF, the students learn how to wash fruit before consumption of how they can treat little wounds themselves. Illustrations on posters and signs make the health tips understandable for the illiterates as well.

LANXESS developed mobile drinking water systems that are easy to operate, require no maintenance, filter water at low costs and reduce the arsenic contamination to almost zero. In March 2007, two systems were installed in a village south of Dhaka for field tests. These were a large blue plastic drum with a tap and a filter for the Bayoxide® E33 beads, and a large funnel with beads at the outlet. In this case, the water is cleaned as it trickles over the beads. The drum solution proved the most suited to this task. Since the start of the tests, the “blue barrel”filter system has been charged with 100 liters of water a day. So far, it has been demonstrated that the water’s arsenic content can be reduced to below 10 micrograms per liter for two years.

In 2004, hexavalent chrome associated with much earlier production activities at this location was discovered in the groundwater outside the site boundary of LANXESS nowadays. LANXESS took responsibility and action for the events that had taken place long before the company was founded. In June 2008 a groundwater extraction facility that represents a critical milestone in the remediation operation was commissioned. The facility pumps the groundwater containing hexavalent chrome from the affected area to the site, where it is used as process water in production processes. Since then more than 27.200 cubic meters of groundwater was cleaned.

In Germany people use about 122 litres of water daily. Only 3 to 6 litre of that is needed for drinking and cooking. Most of the water is used for flushing the toilet, taking a bath or shower.

Another water treatment process is ion exchange with Lewatit®, which is used to remove pollutants such as nickel, nitrate or certain hydrocarbons from drinking water. During the ion exchange process, contaminated water flows through a container filled with ion exchange resin. This filters the contaminants, holding onto the ions of the pollutants and replacing them with harmless ions. Industrial applications include treatment of water for industrial processes in power plants. The microchip and pharmaceutical industries require water in an extremely pure form. Lewatit® is used in these industries to produce ultra-pure water, which is a vital manufacturing resource.

The LANXESS Headquarters in Germany declared 2010 to be „Jahr des Wassers“, which means „Water Year“ in English. LANXESS wants to direct attention to the global water problems by initiating world-wide events at the sites. For example students in Germany came up with concepts according to the new water regulations established by the EU in a “think tank” that had been initiated by LANXESS. In India, representatives from politics and the economy discussed possibilities how to combat the pollution of the water in the country. On top of that further sites in China, the United States and South Africa initiated different debates about the water problems and are working on solutions. The results will be presented in a world-wide documentary soon.

The recent UNESCO Report for 2009 gives an example of the effects of these changes: in 1985, the average Chinese ate 20 kilograms of meat per year; today it is 50 kilograms. In 1960, China produced some 2.5 million metric tons of meat; in 2006 it was more than 80 million metric tons. Yet at the same time, it is estimated that approximately 300 million of the 1.3 billion Chinese still do not have access to clean drinking water.Population growth and increasing industrialization will, according to official forecasts, raise the demand for water by 50 percent in the developing countries by 2025.

In keeping with its corporate vision, LANXESS supports the leather industry in the important phase of transition to sustainable production. The goal is to offer innovative leather chemicals that make it possible to cut water and energy consumption drastically and also reduce the amount of waste.

To expand its product portfolio for water treatment, LANXESS is now also entering the market for membrane technology, and is building the required production facility in Bitterfeld. The company is investing a total of around EUR 30 million in this pioneering project. As things stand today, the first products are due to be released in 2011 following a brief pilot phase. The membrane’s chemical composition and structure make it possible to filter out substances such as nitrates, heavy metals, pesticides, herbicides, viruses, bacteria and the smallest particles.

With nanofiltration, the pores of the membrane are even finer than for micro- or ultrafiltration. This membrane blocks dissolved matter in the water ranging from 0.001 to 0.01 μm in size. Consequently, even dissolved organic and inorganic substances can be removed from the water if the molecules or ions are very big or highly charged. Nanofiltration is used to soften water because nanofiltration membranes can also block bivalent ions.

When readily water-soluble metal ions are oxidized in air, they are converted to oxides that are difficult to dissolve in water. This process usually takes place in aerators. It is used, for example, to remove iron (iron ions are converted to rust) or manganese (manganese ions are converted to manganesedioxide) from drinking water. The oxidized iron or manganese precipitates as hydroxide/oxide and can then be separated from the water through flocculation, sedimentation or filtration.

No matter if we are talking about the chemical industry, paper production, the electronical industry, the mining or food industry, the production of steel ort he car industry – nothing is possible without water. The production of a kilogram paper uses up roundabout 500 litres of water, the construction of a car requires about 10.000 to 20.000 litres. And in order to produce a ton of steel six tons of water are necessary. 

Ion exchange resin experts at LANXESS are also hoping to achieve a “quantum leap” in their work to reduce the size of monodisperse plastic beads. This can be achieved for the uniform polystyrene beads produced in Bitterfeld without running the risk of creating too fine particles that could block the nozzles. Small beads increase the surface area of the resins and thus speed up the process of material exchange. They can also be charged with more functional groups. By significantly improving the kinetics and capacity of the products in this way, LANXESS plans to expand its already flourishing business with chlorine manufacturers.

LANXESS has taken a critical look at the environmental credentials of all its production processes at the Porto Feliz site (Brazil). The specialty chemical group’s “Retro Washing Project” has lowered the volume of wastewater and thus wastewater treatment costs thanks to innovative process optimization. The result is clear to see – less waste, fewer raw materials and less water – this new economy is kind on the environment and more cost-effective. Water consumption has fallen by around 50 percent since 2004 and the amount of waste generated by roughly 40 percent. A positive side-effect of this is that operating costs have also fallen significantly, while further improvements have been seen in productivity and product quality. The site has received several certifications for its green production methods.

Although oceans cover about 70 percent of the earth’s surface, water is nonetheless a scarce commodity — at least freshwater, which after all represents only three percent of the world’s water reserves. And most of that water is frozen in the polar ice caps; compared to the salt water of our planet’s seas — about 1.3 billion cubic kilometers — the roughly 200,000 cubic kilometers of water in the world’s lakes and rivers are like a pathetic trickle. Only less than 1% of global water supplies can be used untreated by humans.

Yet 90 percent of the sewage from hotels and similar accommodation flows untreated into coastal waters – with negative consequences for coral reefs and mangrove swamps. Tourism accounts for seven percent of pollution due to wastewater in the Mediterranean basin: that’s 180 liters of sewage daily per holidaymaker. What’s more, hotels and their guests use disproportionately large amounts of water. Tourists in Granada, Spain, consume seven times as much as water as local residents. And holidaymakers in the Mediterranean get through an average of 440 liters per day, far more than twice what a German uses at home. Golf tourism, in particular, has had an enormous impact on water consumption at holiday resorts. An 18-hole golf course requires 2.3 million liters of water a day to stay lush green. This could supply some 60,000 villagers in a tropical country.

2010 the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the right for clean water as a basic human right.

The British scientist John Anthony Allan created the term “virtual water”. It stands for hidden quantities of water, though not contained in products but used in its production. Allan determined that each cup of coffee contains 140 litres “virtual water” used for cultivation, production, packaging and shipping of the beans. According to this research model a meat burger contains 2,400 litres “virtual water”. According to Allan’s research model a US citizen uses 2,400 litres “virtual water” per day, while a German citizen uses about 4,000 litres per day.

Drinking water:
Water suitable for human consumption and use. It must fulfil conditions that are specified in legal norms. It is our most precious commodity, and irreplaceable.
Industrial water/process water:
Water that is destined primarily for use in industry is known as industrial or process water. The salt content, too, has to be reduced. In private households process water is suitable for use in the toilet and for many other functions in everyday life that do not require drinking water quality.
Gray water:
This is wastewater generated from domestic activities such as washing, showering and taking a bath. It also includes water from the washing machine. As a rule, it is not very polluted since it does not contain fecal matter.
Black water:
This is among the most polluted kinds of wastewater, because it comes from the toilet and contains fecal matter. As a rule, black water is flushed into the sewerage system. From there, it flows to the wastewater treatment plant, where it undergoes treatment before entering natural waters.

A xerophyte or xerophytic organism (xero meaning dry, phyte meaning plant) is a plant which is able to survive in an environment with little available water or moisture, usually in environments where potential evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation for all or part of the growing season.

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker, economist and Nobel Peace Prize recipient. He previously was a professor of economics where he developed the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. With Yunus support it is being checked at the moment, how a mobile filter system with technologies from LANXESS (compare „Blue Barrel“) can be utilized in Bangladesh.

Zzzz...what ist he last thing people should do before they go to bed? Brush their teeth. A lot of water can be saved when brushing the teeth: If you turn off the water instead of letting it run while cleaning the teeth about 6 litres can be saved per minute.