LANXESS at IFAT 2026: Filtration solutions for PFAS, phosphorus, micropollutants, and ultrapure water

Global awareness of the need for efficient and cost-effective drinking water and wastewater treatment is growing noticeably – driven not least by increasingly stringent regulatory requirements.

With ion exchange resins from the Lewatit product family and adsorbents from the Bayoxide brand, LANXESS offers high-performance solutions for this purpose. The specialty chemicals company will demonstrate how these technologies help to reliably meet rising requirements at the IFAT 2026, the world’s leading trade fair for environmental technologies, taking place May 4–7, 2026, in Munich.

Meeting low phosphorus limits – safely and economically

The new Municipal Wastewater Directive (EU 2024/3019), which must be transposed into national law by mid-2027 at the latest, stipulates significantly lower limits for the discharge of phosphorus compounds. With conventional precipitation, membrane, and adsorption processes, this entails considerable additional effort. Furthermore, many adsorbent materials cannot be regenerated economically.

Bayoxide E IN 20 is an adsorbent material from LANXESS based on iron oxide hydroxide (goethite) and enables highly effective and efficient phosphorus filtration. “Regardless of the influent concentration, we were able to achieve sustained effluent values of no more than 0.1 mg/L phosphorus during pilot operations – exactly what the new directive requires. And all this at very economical operating costs,” emphasizes Stefan A. Hilger, Application Technology Manager at LANXESS. A larger demonstration plant in the Netherlands is set to confirm the pilot results shortly.

Bayoxide E IN 20 can also be regenerated with caustic soda in a particularly resource-efficient manner. Compared to iron hydroxide adsorbents, significantly less water is required for rinsing after regeneration. The phosphate solutions produced during desorption can be used for fertilization purposes.

Efficient removal of short- and ultra-short-chain PFAS

Another focus of LANXESS’s presence at IFAT is the removal of PFAS of varying chain lengths from wastewater– from long-chain compounds to ultra-short-chain trifluoroacetate (TFA).

A recent application example at Chemours Netherlands B.V. in Dordrecht demonstrates the performance of the monodisperse selective resin Lewatit MDS TP 108 in practice. LANXESS will present this case study as well as its product portfolio for PFAS removal during a press conference on May 5 at 11 a.m. at the trade show in Room A2.218.

Given the recently lowered EU limits for PFAS in drinking water, this application is also gaining importance. LANXESS supports municipal water utilities and engineering firms in implementing these guidelines with ion exchange resins approved for contact with drinking water, such as Lewatit TP 108 DW.

The new “Basic Design Module” of the freely available LewaPlus design software assists in the planning of PFAS removal systems. With its help, for example, concentration parameters of the inlet and/or outlet streams can be freely defined and regeneration sequences flexibly configured.

In-depth information on the topic of PFAS will be provided in the presentation “Capturing what Others Miss – Ion Exchange Resins for Ultra-short-chain PFAS Removal from Drinking and Wastewater” by Björn Dinges, Application Technology Manager at LANXESS. He will speak on the Green Stage, Hall C4, on May 5, 2026, at 3:30 p.m. Dinges will also participate in the panel “PFAS in Focus” on May 6, 2026, at 9:30 a.m. in Hall B2.

LANXESS will also provide information on “Analysis and Drinking Water Treatment (PFAS)” on May 5 and 7, 2026, as part of “Solution Tours,” for which visitors can register via the IFAT Munich app.

Removing micropollutants and fluoride from wastewater

So-called micropollutants – that is, organic, often aromatic compounds from pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, as well as pesticides and surfactants – must be removed in a fourth treatment stage in the future in accordance with the new Wastewater Directive (KARL). LANXESS offers the monodisperse specialty resin Lewatit VP OC 1064 MD PH for this purpose. It is characterized by high binding capacity for pharmaceutical active ingredients, is mechanically very stable, and – unlike activated carbon – can be regenerated with methanol without significant loss of capacity. It is already in use in the bioprocess industry, for example, for the purification of fermentation broths. A pilot test at a wastewater treatment plant in southern Germany is planned.

Another specialty resin offers an attractive purification option for removing fluoride from wastewater. This is particularly significant for the semiconductor industry, where fluoride-containing etching baths are used and fluoride-containing rinse water is generated. Lewatit MDS TP 260 resin, loaded with aluminum salt, is capable of preferentially binding fluoride even in the presence of sulfate and chloride and can be regenerated with aluminum salts such as aluminum trichloride. The resin has been in use for some time, for example, at a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer, where it reliably maintains fluoride concentrations below 1 ppm in the effluent. The MDS resin, with its small polymer beads, is significantly superior to standard resins in terms of capacity. Over an assumed service life of five years, this could save nearly half the amount of regeneration chemicals.

Ultra-pure water for E&E applications

High-purity, demineralized water (Ultra Pure Water, UPW) is essential not only in semiconductor manufacturing to ensure reliable production of microchips and solar cells and minimize scrap. Such treated water is also a must for PEM electrolysis (Proton Exchange Membrane Electrolysis) used to produce hydrogen. The trace impurities that leach into the water during electrolysis must be continuously removed to prevent membrane damage.

Ion exchange resins from the Lewatit UltraPure product family are specifically tailored to these applications. They are characterized by an exceptionally low release of organic matter (TOC) into the water and enable very low residual conductivities to be achieved. Hans-Jürgen Wedemeyer’s presentation “Important Ion Exchange Resin Properties for PEM Electrolysis” on the Hydrogen Stage in Hall A4 on May 6, 2026, at 12:00 p.m., provides exciting details on this topic.

Detailed information on the products of the Liquid Purification Technologies business unit is available on the website www.lewatit.com.