‘Research, development and innovation are our distinguishing factors’

What would you say are the main hallmarks that have allowed you to consolidate your position as a benchmark in water management?

Over the last six decades, Bondalti Water has consolidated its Iberian and international presence, developing projects on the five continents, which has allowed it to acquire extensive experience and in-depth knowledge in the management of the integral water cycle, as well as to offer solutions adapted to the most diverse contexts and needs.

With industrial units in Spain and Portugal, we have the necessary experience to design and build water treatment systems and plants, implement them in our clients' facilities, as well as provide services related to operation, maintenance and technical assistance.

This ability to respond effectively to different demands and challenges is largely the result of a permanent focus on research, development and innovation, which is a distinctive factor for us, creating sustainable technologies and processes that guarantee high efficiency in the use of water. The aim is to achieve the greatest possible positive impact and not to endanger the resources of future generations.

How do you integrate sustainability and circular economy principles into your solutions to maximise their impact?

To integrate sustainability and circular economy principles into our solutions, Bondalti Water implements a number of practices:

1. Optimisation of water use: we implement advanced water treatment and regeneration technologies, which maximise water use and reduce the consumption of natural resources.

2. Transforming waste into resources: We not only manage the waste generated, but also convert it into value-added resources and fuels, such as biogas, thus contributing to the generation of clean energy and reducing dependence on non-renewable sources.

3. Closing production cycles: We apply the principles of the circular economy to the integral water cycle thanks to the design, implementation and operation of technologies that enable the recovery, recycling, recirculation and reuse of water resources.

4. Continuous innovation: Bondalti Water invests in research, development and innovation, to continue to improve its processes and solutions, with a constant focus on sustainability and efficiency, aiming to generate the greatest possible impact without compromising future resources.

Together, these principles enable Bondalti Water to maximise the positive impact of its solutions, not only in terms of efficiency in water management, but also in promoting a more sustainable and circular economy.

For companies in the agri-food sector, what would you say are the main advantages of applying your technologies?

The solutions implemented by Bondalti Water are the result of the know-how in the integral water cycle of the more than 300 professionals that make up the company.

On the one hand, the accumulated experience of years of sharing the challenges of our clients allows us to offer the best available technologies (BATs) on the market, adapting them to the specific needs of each client. On the other hand, the organisation's culture of innovation demands continuous improvement of water treatment systems through the development of technological solutions and purification processes.

An example of this is our capacity and competence in a BAT such as the membrane biological reactor (MBR), a system that evolves the activated sludge process by means of solid-liquid separation through filtration. This system offers several advantages over conventional treatment processes, which makes it particularly attractive for the industry: robustness and reliability, low footprint and high discharge quality, among others.

Bondalti Water, with the first plant installed in 2003 and more than 150 references, is a leader in Europe in the design, implementation and operation of the MBR process. This milestone is due to the continuous improvement process that we carry out in this purification system through the transversal knowledge of the operations and development area.

The result for our clients is an increase in competitiveness thanks, on the one hand, to the reduction of costs associated with wastewater treatment and, on the other hand, an increase in corporate image through compliance with environmental objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

Innovation and Solutions: Transforming water management

What are the main strategic lines of innovation that Bondalti Water is currently developing, and how do these initiatives respond to the challenges faced by the agri-food sector in this area?

Innovation is part of the DNA of our business and is reflected in an attitude of continuous search for new solutions to our customers' challenges.

At Bondalti Water, we believe that innovation is not only limited to technology, but also extends to processes, business models and ways of acting. For us, innovation is a holistic process, which must be effective and continuous, applying to all aspects of our business.

In this way, we seek not only to improve our technological solutions, but also to optimise our practices and strategies, ensuring a constant evolution towards efficiency, sustainability and added value in all our operations.

This allows Bondalti Water to anticipate future scenarios, question current purification processes, look for alternatives and identify opportunities to provide a better service.

To this end, Bondalti Water has defined an innovation strategy identifying five macro-areas of interest:

- Increasing the operational efficiency of the facilities we manage, to achieve continuous improvement of the service we provide to our clients in the design, construction and operation of the plants.

- Plug and play equipment, through the productivisation of our technological solutions to facilitate construction, transport and installation at our clients' homes.

- Recycling, recirculation and reuse of water resources with the aim of finding fit for purpose technologies that allow water to be put to a second use inside or outside our customers' facilities.

- Recovery and valorisation of elements of interest with added value, which today are often treated as waste, through the integration of technological packages that manage to increase efficiency in the use of resources.

- Biogas and digestate integration of anaerobic processes in industrial wastewater treatment plants with the aim of evolving them towards renewable fuel producing facilities, with a lower energy demand.

How do you customise your solutions to address the specific needs of each industrial process?

Creating value for our customers through design, experimentation and implementation of new ideas and solutions plays a central role for Bondalti Water. In this line, I would like to tell you about one of the customisations of our technologies to the food and beverage sector: Multi-AD, an anaerobic technology solution designed ad-hoc for agri-food SMEs.

It is widely known that anaerobic treatment systems are one of the most sustainable alternatives for the treatment of industrial wastewater: low energy consumption, low sludge production, reduced installation surface area, lower operating costs...

Currently, the market offers a wide range of anaerobic technologies, however, these are only optimised for large companies with high treatment flows. This is remarkable because, as you know, the food and beverage industry is made up of 290,000 small and medium sized companies representing 99% of the total manufacturing sector in the European Union.

For this reason, Bondalti Water has developed a highly efficient multi-stage reactor, which, by means of a fully automated operation, achieves the treatment and valorisation of wastewater generated by the food and beverage industries. In fact, the Multi-AD technology package is a reality, with the first plant in service at a winery in La Rioja since 2021.

Circular economy: A commitment to integrated use

Could you share a specific case of how you have applied the circular economy?

La Zaragozana (AMBAR) is a clear case of successful implementation and operation of water technologies that contribute to the development of resource efficiency strategies in the framework of circular economy production models.

Bondalti Water, as a partner of La Zaragozana, has designed, built and is operating a technological ecosystem at the Zaragoza-based brewery, which is composed of a process water plant and a WWTPi. The latter features the synergistic coupling of biological, anaerobic and aerobic processes through the integration of two BATs.

The anaerobic process by means of a UASB reactor is capable of treating and recovering the organic matter present in the water, generating a renewable energy source. The biogas, rich in methane, will be used as fuel in the brewery's boilers, reducing both the energy demand and the carbon footprint of the beverage industry.

Subsequently, more than 1,500 m3 of water can be treated daily in an aerobic process via a membrane biological reactor. The MBR technology manages to purify and regenerate the water to a physico-chemical and microbiological quality that allows it to be reused in accordance with the new Royal Decree 1085/2024.

Therefore, La Zaragozana, together with Bondalti Water, has achieved with the implementation of the aforementioned technological packages, an installation with a low soil footprint, high robustness in the fulfilment of the discharge requirements and low operating costs that allows the brewery to anticipate the current regulatory framework.

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Looking to the future: Challenges and opportunities on the horizon

What are the main challenges you identify for the future of the agri-food sector, especially in relation to the processes you implement, and what strategies are you adopting to face them?

Water availability is today an increasingly critical factor in various sectors, and the agri-food sector is no exception. Climate change and anthropogenic activity have caused strong deviations from the usual patterns, affecting both water quantity and quality.

This has increased the pressure on water resources and created new challenges. To cope with this reality, it is necessary to increase the resilience of the entire production chain by incorporating fit for purpose water treatment systems into the various industrial processes.

In addition to these optimisation projects, we can also take as an example the adoption of recovery and valorisation processes for key elements for agriculture such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which are present in high concentrations in the water to be treated.

Aware that it is increasingly important to integrate renewable energies into industrial processes, we are using biotechnologies that convert organic waste into a source of energy - one example is biogas - as well as employing advanced monitoring and control technologies.

This context has led to increasingly stringent regulations on water use, waste management, pollutant gas emissions and even food safety, forcing us to adapt, even if this means investing heavily in infrastructure and technology.

Bondalti Water is keeping pace with this evolution by incorporating circularity into its solutions, which not only helps to comply with environmental regulations, but also improves the sustainability of operations and reduces the sector's ecological footprint. In addition, the implementation of advanced technologies also helps to meet the growing environmental awareness of consumers reflecting new consumption patterns.

In terms of technological developments, what innovations do you see as key to boost the implementation and efficiency of your solutions in the coming years?

For Bondalti Water, the key innovation lies in the generation of knowledge that allows us to make future predictions based on the data and information we are able to obtain from the plants we design and operate.

In fact, we are already working on Water 5.0, an intelligent platform for the efficient management of water resources in the industrial environment. This idea takes into account the importance that water and its binomials (water-energy, water-waste and water-resource) have for our clients; a relevance that goes beyond the limits of a WWTPi.

To this end, we are developing and integrating into an analytical platform, digital tools capable of anticipating anomalous behaviour or situations in a WWTPi, as well as simulating the behaviour of different scenarios by means of digital twins to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the plant's operation.

In this way, the treatment plant ceases to be a wastewater sink that operates in a reactive manner and evolves into a facility that, predictively, using the information generated by both the industries and the algorithms developed, adapts to the specific needs of the water to be treated.

Through the detailed quantification of technical-economic indicators, the reduction of operating costs (e.g., lower energy consumption, lower demand for resources, lower waste generation) is visualised, as well as increasing the security and robustness of capital investments in future extensions of the WWTPi.

Partnerships that add up: Together towards a common goal

What do you consider to be the key elements for fostering a culture of collaboration in an organisation?

One of the keys to our success is sharing a common vision and aligning objectives, which is especially important when we face complex challenges such as sustainability in the agri-food sector.

From the point of view of innovation, we are committed to a collaborative activity that brings added value to the client, we are aware that the best ideas arise when different perspectives come together to find solutions.

Within Bondalti Water, innovation activity is totally transversal. All areas (i.e. commercial, development, operations and laboratory) are actively involved in innovation, seeking a synergy of both knowledge and experience available in-house. We execute projects by forming teams with professionals from different departments; our innovation is not encapsulated in the R&D&I department.

Furthermore, outside Bondalti Water we have alliances with universities, technology centres, clusters or companies, national and international, to embed specific knowledge, as well as with our customers to learn first-hand about the challenges that concern them.

These knowledge networks enrich the multidisciplinary nature of the groups of people involved in innovation activities, a quality that we consider key to improving the products and services we offer our customers.

As Food+i partners, what value do you see in this collaboration for your projects and the impact on the agri-food sector?

Food+i is an ecosystem that helps us to catalyse Bondalti Water's innovation activity through two key aspects.

On the one hand, it allows us to connect with a top-level business network, where food and beverage industries, technology partners and entrepreneurs share and exchange with us their challenges and proposals to improve water resource management.

And, on the other hand, as a natural platform for innovation, the cluster is a magnificent promoter of initiatives related to R&D projects whose execution allows us to develop new solutions to be included in the portfolio of technologies to be offered to our customers.