NTU builds its first overseas water treatment plant

SINGAPORE — A water treatment plant that requires just one person to operate it will supply cleaner and cheaper potable water in Vietnam at only two-thirds of current prices there.

The Nanyang Technological University start-up De.Mem launched its first overseas water treatment plant at Duc Hoa, at Long An province near Ho Chi Minh City, last Friday (May 10). De.Mem is short for Decentralised Membranes. The Duc Hoa Water Treatment Plant will be linked wirelessly via an NTU-designed network to a Singapore office that will oversee and manage its daily operations remotely.

At a size of a five-room HDB flat (120 square metres), the plant has an output of 1 million litres of drinking water daily, equivalent to 6,600 Singaporeans’ daily water consumption. It treats ground water, but it can also handle river water.

The Duc Hoa Water Treatment Plant, a joint venture between De.Mem and Vietnam company GD Wasser, is backed by Singapore-based investment firm New Asia Investments, which has invested S$300,000 in De.Mem.

De.Mem is a subsidiary and partner of Membrane Instruments and Technology (MINT), and uses the latter’s membrane integrity sensor technologies to monitor the plant’s performance.

Four more water treatment plants are being planned for Vietnam by the end of this year, which will be based on De.Mem’s decentralised water network model. The upcoming plants include a retrofit of an existing 2,000- square-metre facility.