A Belgian company wants to start converting animal blood into potable water. Veos is investing a sum of two million euros in a water treatment plant. This should filter 150 cubic metres of animal blood into drinkable water on a daily basis.
Veos is a company that focuses on processing slaughter by-products into protein-rich raw materials for the animal feed industry. These include pet food and aquaria. The company also produces raw materials for the food and pharmaceutical industries. The company has been operating since 1974.
Reduce use of groundwater
With the investment in a new water treatment plant, the company from Zwevezel, Belgium, about 40 kilometres from the Dutch border, aims to reduce its use of groundwater by 40%. The filtered water is to be used circularly in the company's production processes.
The company sees the demand for high-quality functional proteins rising. It therefore feels compelled to expand production. "We find it important to do business in a sustainable way as much as possible. For example, we already invested heavily in solar panels and heat exchangers," says Robert Slee, co-CEO of Veos.
Cleaning tanks takes a lot of water
Veos wants to use the water produced by the new water purification plant for its production process. Specifically, this involves cleaning the tanks in which animal blood is stored.
"However, our production process requires a lot of water to clean the tanks in which the animal blood is stored. Until now, we only used groundwater that we pumped from the neighbourhood. To add extra strength to our sustainable ambitions and maintain groundwater levels, we started looking for an alternative to pump up less water in future and still have enough water to expand production."
150,000 litres of potable water per day
This alternative has become the new water purification plant that the company will realise. It should realise an additional 150,000 litres of potable water from animal blood on a daily basis.
"Specifically, we are going to thicken blood during the production process to then vacuum dry it later. During that process, water vapour is released from the blood. We let that condense until it is water again. That water will now be purified thanks to the new water purification plant so that it can be used circularly in the production process. That way, we will use up to 40 per cent less groundwater, 45,000,000 litres of water on an annual basis."
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Photo: Rony Michaud via Pixabay
