A 2013 pilot project that started on Vancouver’s Burrard inlet seashore is now winning international bids, creating BC jobs and protecting Canada’s environment. Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Government of British Columbia’s Innovative Clean Energy (ICE) fund first supported Saltworks Technologies in its drive to commercialize an innovative technology that treats the most challenging industrial salty wastewaters. The product now has global installations, all built in BC.
CEO Benjamin Sparrow commented, “Our country recognizes that cleantech innovation can advance our resource sector as well as diversify our economy. Saltworks investors, partners, and team sent plants out to oil, gas, mining, and industrial sites, making clean water from very salty brines that were previously trucked off site. The SaltMaker innovation changed this equation.” Saltworks now operates two factories in BC, building some of the world’s most advanced water technology, with customers including major oil and gas and mining companies, as well as NASA.
The early joint strategic funding from SDTC and ICE set Saltworks on course with a first plant, which withdrew waste heat from a portside cold storage facility, saving carbon emissions in the process. After multiple full-scale installations internationally, the company brought the technology home in 2016 and built a plant in the Interior of British Columbia for Wastech. The plant employs waste heat thermal energy from reciprocating clean power engines, lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to alternative treatment options, while producing clean water and jobs.
About Wastech
Wastech Services Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Belkorp Environmental Services Inc., has more than 30 years’ experience in British Columbia as a strong partner for corporations, government agencies and institutions in the design, management, and optimization of recycling and waste management systems. Our core areas of expertise include recycling, transfer stations, landfills, commodity sales, wood recycling, and transportation-back-hauling services. Wastech works in collaboration with communities in which it operates to bring solutions that are cost-effective, and that minimize or eliminate environmental impacts. Wastech is headquartered in Coquitlam, and operates transfer stations in Abbotsford, Coquitlam, North Vancouver and Surrey, as well as the Cache Creek Landfill in the BC interior.
Saltworks Technologies is a leader in the development and delivery of solutions for industrial wastewater treatment and lithium refining. By working with customers to understand their unique challenges and focusing on continuous innovation, Saltworks’ solutions provide best-in-class performance and reliability. From its headquarters in Richmond, BC, Canada, Saltworks’ team designs, builds, and operates full-scale plants, and offers comprehensive onsite and offsite testing services with its fleet of mobile pilots.
Reverse osmosis (RO) is the best available technology to treat landfill leachate for surface discharge. Possible trace volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ammonia emerging in the RO permeate can be removed with a polishing step to meet the highest discharge standards.
PFAS chemicals are often referred to as “forever chemicals” since they do not naturally degrade. Saltworks’ solutions can treat PFAS in water.
The many options for managing brine, a term for saline wastewater from industrial processes, fall under two categories: brine treatment and brine disposal. Brine treatment involves desalinating the brine for reuse and producing a concentrated brine (lower liquid waste volume), or residual solids (zero liquid discharge).
Saltworks can help you to address your leachate challenges with ultra-high recovery solutions for sewer or surface discharge. We have you covered for chemical, membrane and thermal solutions, including integration when required. Our solutions can reduce your leachate treatment costs, stakeholder risks, and residual waste volumes to manage.