The partnership between GE Power & Process Technologies, one of GE Power's businesses, and Braskem, the largest petrochemical company in the Americas, was awarded by Ecomagination, a GE award that honors initiatives achieving the balance between the efficiency of industrial production and the greatest sustainability challenges, on a global scale. The award-winning project is based on the Reverse Osmosis mobile unit, installed at the Braskem plant in Mauá, a metropolitan region of São Paulo.

"Through the Reverse Osmosis system, we were able to provide Braskem with an efficient, easy-to-install solution that provides fast results at a low operating cost, enabling the customer to make a financial gain of more than one million dollars a year," explains Eduardo Pavani, Regional Executive Director of GE Water & Process Technologies. 

Braskem was seeking a solution for its water treatment operations and for replacing its demineralization unit. After studies conducted in collaboration with the petrochemical engineering group, the company's ion exchange unit was replaced by GE Water & Process Technologies' mobile reverse osmosis equipment, ensuring the operational continuity the plant needed. 

"Along these more than 15 years of activity in the chemical and petrochemical industry, Braskem has been writing a history of operational efficiency and sustainable development. This partnership with GE brings us benefits of optimization and reduction of consumption of chemicals in the production process. We received with great satisfaction this recognition, which represents a new goal for overcoming our results," comments Pedro Boscolo, industrial manager of Braskem's Polypropylene unit in Mauá.

The implemented system is assembled inside containers, which facilitates mobility and agility in the installation process. Reverse Osmosis technology removes the salts, producing water permeated by low conductivity, which is used in the steam generation system. The "plug and play" container installation allowed a quick start of the system and the immediate availability of quality water to Braskem, which depends on this resource to carry out its operations. 

Saving drinking water was one of the positive results that led Braskem to be recognized by the Ecomagination award. "The company used clarified water to feed the ionic exchange system and, after the Reverse Osmosis process, which operates with reuse water, it began saving around 128,115 m³ of clarified water per year, which is equivalent to 10% of the annual drinking water consumption of a city with 425 thousand inhabitants. GE's partnership with Braskem has brought significant financial gain to the company, as well as an increase in the efficiency of its operations and an extremely positive environmental return to the environment," says Eduardo Pavani. 

About Ecomagination
Ecomagination Leadership is an award granted by GE on a quarterly basis, recognizing customers worldwide that reduce environmental impacts and improve the productivity of their operations, with the use of company's technologies. 

Created in 2005, its focus is to recognize the reduction of environmental impacts and to develop strategic partnerships to address the world's greatest environmental challenges, through solutions that combine energy efficiency and sustainable growth with clean technologies, which avoid harmful emissions and reduce water consumption.