Cologne – The Liquid Purification Technologies (LPT) business unit of the specialty chemicals company LANXESS, one of the world’s leading suppliers of products and solutions for water treatment, plans to expand its business with reverse osmosis membrane elements in Turkey. Correspondingly, LPT signed a distribution agreement with the Turkish Burkut INC, Izmir, regarding the sale of membrane elements of the Lewabrane brand.

Burkut, founded in 1984, is a leading Turkish company for industrial process water treatment. It markets, builds and supplies technical services for water treatment plants. “Burkut has decades of experience in the field of process water treatment and is therefore an ideal partner for us to continue growing in Turkey,” says Jean-Marc Vesselle, Head of LANXESS’s BU Liquid Purification Technologies.

“The domestic market offers a lot of potential for water treatment technologies. We are pleased to be able to market the membrane elements from LANXESS, which meet the highest German and international production and quality standards, in Turkey,” says Enis Burkut, President of Burkut Su Tekniği A.Ş.

Membrane technology from LANXESS for the Turkish water market

The treatment of industrial process water has gained in importance in Turkey since the 1980s. Burkut has accompanied the development of the market from the very beginning. “In the past, only imported water treatment plants were used in Turkey. This has changed fundamentally over the last four decades. Turkey now exports water treatment systems to numerous countries via large international OEMs. And the water purification business will continue to grow in the coming years as exports increase,” forecasts Burcu Atalay, Sales Manager in the BU LPT.

Membrane technology from LANXESS for seawater desalination

Since its market launch in early 2012, LANXESS has continuously expanded its range of membrane elements for reverse osmosis. Today, the Lewabrane range offers numerous element types in various sizes, which are either particularly fouling-resistant, energy-efficient optimized for high performance. This opens up a wide range of applications for the Group and its customers in the treatment of process water and wastewater across many different industries. Another important field of application is the treatment of seawater. LANXESS has developed the Lewabrane RO S series especially for this purpose, which currently comprises six types.

In reverse osmosis (RO), seawater is pressed at high pressure through semipermeable membranes that retain the salt. The process requires only about one-sixth of the energy consumed by a multi-stage evaporation system.

“In the Aegean region between Izmir and Bodrum, the flow of well water decreases from the second half of the year. Some large steel, cement and power plants located by the sea meet the seasonal water shortage by treating seawater by reverse osmosis. Holiday resorts in areas where communal water is good but expensive are already using this technology,” reports Atalay. “In the area of seawater desalination, we will continue to grow through our cooperation with Burkut while also expanding our business with operators of Turkish energy and industrial plants that already purchase our Lewatit ion exchange resins,” adds Vesselle.

Detailed information on the products of the BU LPT can be found on the Internet at http://lpt.lanxess.com.

The BU LPT of LANXESS currently employs over 500 people worldwide. LPT is part of LANXESS's Performance Chemicals segment, which achieved sales of EUR 1.44 billion in 2017.