IWEX comes back with a vengeance

The International Water & Environment Exhibition made an attention-grabbing return to the NEC in Birmingham last month after an 18-month absence. And visitors flocked in their thousands


IWEX 2007 took place last month, for the first time since Sustainabilitylive! organiser and WET News publisher Faversham House Group bought the exhibition and journal in November 2005.

Thousands of visitors flooded Sustainabilitylive!, the UK’s largest forum for excellence and innovation in environment, water, land and energy. It also incorporates the ET, NEMEX, ICU and ES exhibitions over the three days. And IWEX 2007 saw more than its fair share of the crowds. IWEX exhibitors were in agreement that “there’s a definite buzz”.

Visitors to IWEX saw first hand newly launched products and services designed to sharpen their operations.

With metering becoming a major issue in the industry, several companies took the opportunity to highlight their innovative technologies.

Sensus Metering Systems (SMS) used the exhibition to demonstrate its new AMR technology – Sensus((S))cout. The AMR meters were reading meters located in Surrey, from SMS’s stand, where Sutton & East Surrey Water is using

the technology at a housing development.

Severn Trent Services was also on hand to discuss its SmartMeter solid-state electronic water meters, which use fluidic oscillation technology to provide accurate measurement of water flows throughout the product lifetime.

Elster used IWEX to show off its range of water metering products.

Real-time water monitoring was another hot topic at IWEX. Intellitect, making its IWEX debut, took the opportunity to demonstrate its Intellisonde that uses advanced sensor technology rather than chemical reagents to give multi-parameter water quality monitoring. The product fits directly into the water distribution network and monitors up to 12 parameters every five minutes.

Pulsar Process Measurement, which is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year,

has taken non-contacting ultrasonic open channel flow measurement to the next level with its new DUET concept. The Double Ultrasonic Echo Tracking (DUET) concept uses two separate transducers mounted at different heights above the flow level within the normal Primary Measurement Device.

The transducers emit sound pulses synchronously, and the returning echoes are analysed in the Pulsar control unit.

Advice as well as new products were available for companies visiting Durapipe’s stand. This included the latest in plastic pipework systems for the water treatment sector, including an extensive range of manual and actuated valves and flow control packages.

Westfalia took the opportunity to highlight its UCD 205 decanter for treating industrial wastewater. The decanter, part of the CD Force range of high-efficiency dewatering centrifuges, has a capacity of up to 4m3/h.

On the security front, SeSys demonstrated its new CamSys GPRS camera that can be deployed quickly, emailing a picture on demand or periodically. Various configurations of the cameras are available for hazardous areas.

Burkert Fluid Control

Systems displayed a variety of fluid control systems.

On the filtering front, Brightwater Engineering launched its Build-Offsite range of HSAF submerged aerated filters. Using a special floating B-Max media, HSAF offers carbonaceous, tertiary ammonia and denitrification treatment to a high standard within a small footprint package.

Bollfilter displayed its range of high-performance filtration systems. These included two new products, the Boll 6.18.2 heavy-duty automatic model and the Boll 1.12.2 simplex filter.

Atlas Copco showcased a new dry rotary screw compressor as well as the innovative ZB single stage centrifugal blowers.

Visitors to the Dresser Roots stand saw its new generation EasyAir unit on display. This offers a fully equipped, integrated unit with maintenance access, ease of operation and competitive noise levels.

Haigh Engineering used the exhibition to display its Lisep liquid separator, the dewatering part of the Lisep Package Screenings handling system, while Hidrostal used the occasion to exhibit examples of its pumps that use its centrifugal impeller technology.

Two new Catchpot systems were on show at HDV’s stand. One system is designed to transform standard dribble fill float valves to full bore delayed versions while the second is a Catchpot for WC cisterns that saves 500ml of water every flush.

Visitors to IWEX were also entertained by the 19th IWO National Drilling and Tapping Championship. The time trial event requires skill and dexterity from the two-man teams taking part as they drill and tap a 150mm-diameter ductile iron main under pressure at 483-689kPa and installing a simulated service connection. Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water took the top prize with a winning time of 2 minutes and 12 seconds.

Next year, Sustainabilitylive! and IWEX 2008 will be held at Birmingham’s NEC on May 20-22, 2008.

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