The client challenge
For the needs of its overseas operations (OPEX), the Defence Infrastructure Service (SID) of the French Ministry of Defence must be capable of producing drinking water in full autonomy, across highly varied geographic and climatic contexts, from whatever local resources are available — whether surface water, groundwater or seawater.
This specification imposes extremely specific constraints, with no equivalent in standard civilian applications:
- Deployability: units must be rapidly transportable by air, sea or land to operational theatres that may be remote and difficult to access
- Modularity: treatment processes must be combinable according to the quality of the local resource, to form a treatment chain adapted to each theatre
- Tropicalisation: equipment must withstand extreme climatic conditions (heat, high humidity, variety of contexts) without failure
- Operational autonomy: units must be operable by trained personnel who are not water treatment specialists
- DWS quality: regulatory compliance with Drinking Water Standards must be guaranteed at all times
The SID entrusted Nomado with the design and manufacture of 3 modular, containerised and deployable treatment units, covering the three key processes for drinking water production in OPEX.
The Nomado solution
Nomado designed and built 3 independent, interconnectable units (UTEF — Water Filtration Treatment Units), each specialised in a treatment process, and whose combination enables a complete process chain to be constituted, adapted to the resource quality at the operational theatre.
Each unit was designed to be tropicalised from the outset:
- Thermal insulation of containers and equipment
- Reversible, removable air conditioning
- Integrated dehumidifier
- Recessed hydraulic and electrical inlets/outlets for protection against external agents
Unit 1 — Reverse Osmosis (UTEF RO)
The reverse osmosis unit can treat water with high dissolved salt concentrations, including seawater or brackish water:
- Reverse osmosis skid: microfiltration pre-treatment, high-pressure pump (60 bar), reverse osmosis membranes, online analysers (pH, turbidity, chlorine)
- Automated CIP circuit (Clean-In-Place) with tank and immersion heater: membrane cleaning without disassembly
- Reagent injection: metabisulphite (antioxidant), antiscalant (anti-fouling), acid and base for pH correction
- 2 electrical control panels with HMI (Human-Machine Interface), including automation programming
Unit 2 — Granular Activated Carbon Filtration (UTEF GAC)
The granular activated carbon filtration unit removes organic micropollutants, dissolved gases and residual chlorine before reverse osmosis treatment or direct use:
- Raw water tank and feed pump
- GAC filter with strainer plate: filtration through granular activated carbon
- Air blower for bed fluidisation: carbon bed regeneration by air
- Set of pneumatic automatic valves: automated wash cycles
- Reagent injection and dosing
Unit 3 — Electrochlorination
The electrochlorination unit produces chlorine in situ by electrolysis, eliminating the need to transport and store gaseous or liquid chlorine at operational theatres:
- Chlorine production by electrolysis: synthesis of sodium hypochlorite from salt water for final disinfection of produced water
- Automated control of residual chlorine dosing to ensure DWS compliance
Results achieved
- Three independent, interconnectable units adaptable to different operational theatres according to local resource quality
- Full tropicalisation ensuring equipment integrity under extreme climatic conditions
- Production of drinking water compliant with DWS standards under autonomous OPEX conditions
- Modular design enabling only the necessary units to be deployed based on the resource available in the field
- Operational autonomy through integrated automation and dedicated HMI panels
