LANXESS: Sustainable and efficient water treatment

Versatile and high-performance ion exchange resins from the Lewatit product range and adsorbers under the Bayoxide brand for a diverse range of applications will once again be at the heart of the portfolio showcased at Aquatech by the specialty chemicals company LANXESS this year. The international trade show for the process water, drinking water and wastewater industries will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, from November 6 to 9, 2023.

“When it comes to choosing the right ion exchange processes, numerous different aspects play a role. Sustainability is increasingly becoming a key criterion, and we are responding by developing resins based on sustainably produced raw materials,” says Dr. Stefan Neufeind, head of Technical Marketing for the Liquid Purification Technologies business unit at LANXESS. “Our LewaPlus design software is a valuable tool that allows the potential of our resins to be leveraged as effectively as possible. It covers all the relevant steps, from choosing the resins and processes and dimensioning plants through to calculating investment and operating costs and optimizing processes.”

Greater sustainability thanks to Scopeblue and Eco resins

Resins that LANXESS markets under the Scopeblue umbrella brand offer significantly enhanced sustainability. This umbrella brand is used for products that have a renewable raw material content of more than 50 percent or a carbon footprint of less than half that of the equivalent product made from conventional raw materials.

To automatically calculate the carbon footprint of the Group’s products, LANXESS has developed its own system solution: the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) engine. It was certified by TÜV Rheinland to ISO 14067 and draws upon numerous internal and external data sources for calculating carbon footprints according to the “cradle-to-gate” principle. This PCF data is available free of charge to customers for use in their own sustainability activities.

The three weak acidic cation (WAC) exchange resins Lewatit S 8227, Lewatit S 8229 and Lewatit CNP P even meet both Scopeblue conditions. More than half of the dry mass of these acrylic resins originates from acrylonitrile, which can be obtained from tall oil in accordance with the mass balance approach. The carbon footprint is at least 60 percent smaller than that of the conventional product. The resins are produced at the Leverkusen site, which, like the mass balancing method, is certified to ISCC PLUS (International Sustainability & Carbon Certification). More details are provided in the LANXESS presentation entitled “Sustainable Ion Exchange Resins for Water Treatment – New Lewatit Scopeblue and Eco Types,” which will be given by Bjoern Dinges and Dr. Martin Lichtenheldt at Aquatech (AquaStage, hall 3) on November 8, 2023, at 11:15 a.m.

An important area of application for these WAC resins is cartridges for water filters, which can be used for producing partially softened water in the preparation of, for example, hot drinks such as coffee and tea. Filter systems like these are used both in the home and commercially.

According to internal LANXESS estimates, the ion exchange resin accounts for the largest share of these cartridges in terms of mass and volume, along with the plastic housing and the activated carbon they contain, meaning that their carbon footprint can be reduced by up to half. In these times of growing consumer awareness of sustainability, this is likely to be a competitive advantage for end products as well.

Although Eco-brand resins do not yet fulfill the strict criteria under the Scopeblue definition, they also have a much reduced carbon footprint.

The LANXESS presentation “The Use of Selective Lewatit Ion Exchange Resins for the Removal of Emerging Contaminants: PFAS and Beyond” by Dr. Dirk Steinhilber on November 8, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. at the AquaStage is also addressing a sustainability aspect, namely the remediation of surface, ground, and wastewater as part of sustainable water management.

LewaPlus – calculate, model, simulate, optimize

For decades now, LANXESS has been offering its customers the free design software LewaPlus, which is comprehensively deployed by experts within the company, too. The functional scope of the software has grown continuously over the years, and today it can be used for not only simple design tasks but also complex simulations and cost calculations.

The software package now features numerous modules that enable the combined configuration of ion exchange, reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration stages. A whole range of applications are covered here – from power plants and industrial water–steam circuits through to drinking water treatment, wastewater treatment and food industry processes. LewaPlus allows both the loading and the regeneration phase to be reliably modeled and adapted in line with customer-specific requirements and circumstances. In this way, new plants can be planned and the performance of existing installations checked and, if necessary, optimized. The presentation entitled “LewaPlus – A Perfect Tool for Ion Exchange Systems Evaluation and Optimization,” to be given by LANXESS expert Hans-Jürgen Wedemeyer (AquaStage, November 7, 2023, 12:45 p.m.) will focus on methods for analyzing and optimizing existing plants with examples from real life.

The software is now available in eleven languages and is extremely user-friendly. Technology modules can be dragged, dropped and combined to create complex system configurations. LewaPlus is currently being used by more than 6,000 users in more than 100 countries. Customers can store their results in PDF files for ease of documentation and sharing with LANXESS experts, for example for further analysis or consultation purposes.

You can find more detailed information about products from the Liquid Purification Technologies business unit on the website at www.lewatit.com.