The EU-project regarding Pharem´s water treatment technology (PFS) enters a new phase. During the coming weeks Pharem, together with its project partners, will install and start-up one of the demonstration systems in Sweden. During the project, the wastewater treatment plants will act as a demonstration plant to showcase the systems, share experience and knowledge from operating the installation and of the enzyme technology in general.

The main purpose of the project is to industrialize and scale up production to establish Pharem as a Europe-based company on the international market. Though the project, EU wants to enable technology solutions with great growth and future potential and at the same time be a technology or product that competes strongly with established technologies and solutions.

Pharem is the owner of the water-treatment technology, which is known as the Pharem Filtration System (PFS). Enzymes are developed and adapted to treat effluent water from wastewater treatment plants. The enzymes are immobilised to a filter material and later used in column solutions and installed on the WWTP. Enzyme technology is an established treatment principle and is applied to several other industries today. Unique to technologies as PFS is that it does not require energy to be fully functional as enzymes act without energy supplements. The technology base provides a very flexible and cost-effective system that, already in its cradle, can compete with established technologies. As a solution, the system is offered at no cost, regardless of the size of the installation, and the operational cost for the WWTPs is linked to the filter material that is delivered and replaced at regular intervals.

The first phases of the EU-project have mainly focused on the physical aspects of the technology (flow parameters, filter-material, column design and stability). The aim is to finalise the standardised module that will be used in coming installations. Pharem has continuously strengthened and validated its platform technology internally and has now decided to move forward for larger demonstrations.

– It’s been hard work from our colleagues. I am very proud of the focus we have had and during the last years, we have successfully developed several technology parameters in parallel with each other. The successes have attracted many industrial partners with whom Pharem has established collaboration with. Several wastewater treatment plants have shown interest due to the beneficial cost model of using enzyme-based technology. It´s very exciting, says Martin Ryen, CEO, Pharem Biotech AB

The coming weeks will focus on the installation of the system and performing the start-up procedures. When all project partners give the green light, Pharem plans to invite for demonstration visits during May/June this year.

-We have developed a treatment that is easy to operate, have minimum impact on the infrastructure and adds no additional safety procedures to the existing site. This will be of great interest to the industry. For the demonstration, we collaborate with existing service organisations to validate the service procedures. Filter changes, system controls and other maintenance activities will be a part of the last phase. The goal of the project is to present a ready-to-install technology with validated performances and operations. The EU-project is planned to end around the summer and we are looking forward to starting communicating our results with our customers and industrial partners during Q3. ” says Christian Ryen, COO, Pharem Biotech AB

The platform technology used in PFS is already available for the process industry. Here, Pharem offers to adapt their enzymes technology to help companies to treat water effluent from manufacturing sites or others.

More information about Pharem https://www.pharem.se

Contact

• Manuel Ferrer, Presschef, Pharem Biotech AB: manuel.ferrer@pharem.se, +46 (0) 70 66 60 259

This project has received funding from the [European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme][European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme][Euratom research and training programme 2014-2018] under grant agreement No [804453]