‘Made in Malta’ sewage purification plants to be exported to USA

A new joint venture between the state-owned Water Services Corporation (WSC) and the German Nano technology company; ‘ItN Nanovation,’ has announced ambitious plans to export mobile water purification plants produced in Malta to the whole Mediterranean region, as well as to the USA.

This was revealed in a report on German on-line magazine Finanzen.net. The German company envisages that by the end of 2012, mass production of the new mobile plants will commence in Malta with about 100 plants being produced every year.

“We want to sell the mobile water purification plants in the whole Mediterranean region, but also in other regions such as the USA’, member of the ItN board Lutz Bungeroth said.

The two firms have used the ItN’s membrane technology to design and develop a mobile mini water purification plant, which cleans sewage water “which is cleaner than any bathing pond in Germany”.

Although it cannot be used as drinking water, it can be used for many other purposes: to water public parks or hotel gardens, to flash the toilets or to mix cement. It is thereby possible to save huge quantities of drinking water.

The plant produced by ItN and WSC costs €85,000 to produce, fits in a usual maritime transport container, and  can be easily transported. Within a period of only one week upon delivery, the plant has been connected and ready for operation.

According to the recently published WSC annual report a prototype wastewater treatment plant was  installed in the Water Services Corporation’s head office to treat  45/m3 of sewage to very high standards  every day.

The first fully operational plant is to be installed in Bidnija which is presently served by cesspits by the end of this year.

“The team’s progress is such that the German company ItN Nanovation has invited the Corporation to create a joint venture for the production in Malta of such plants for export purposes,” the corporation chief executive Mark Muscat said in the corporation’s annual report.