Co-Flow Campus & TWP are in the Heart of BKT/Tomorrow Water CEO’s Interview with the Korean Media
BKT/Tomorrow Water CEO Dong-woo Kim, "Presenting a new paradigm for future sewage treatment plants"
Co-Flow Campus, transformed into a 'money-making sewage treatment plant'
Successfully converging energy, data, and economic value in a sewage treatment plant
Building the world's most compact sewage treatment plant for developing countries
Need EDCF support to revitalize private companies' overseas expansion
South Korea, October 28th 2024
BKT Co., Ltd. (CEO Dong-woo Kim) is attracting attention as it is leading environmental technology innovation and speeding up the construction of the 'Future Sewage Treatment Plant (Co-Flow Campus)'. BKT has grown into a representative company of water treatment in Korea that has created new value from wastewater and waste and delivered it to the world and has continuously made an impact. In particular, based on the vision of 'A clean and beautiful world beyond waste', the company has focused on the development of wastewater and waste recycling technology for 26 years since its establishment in 1998.
Following the establishment of a subsidiary in the United States in 2008 and a subsidiary in Vietnam in 2014 as an advanced base for overseas expansion, it entered the European market this year and is taking a leap forward as a world-class environmental company.
CEO Dong-woo Kim said, "Sewage treatment plants must now be transformed into facilities that provide various resources for a sustainable city beyond simply treating pollutants," and emphasized, "In order to lead the global water market, we must develop into a carbon-neutral combined sewage treatment facility that encompasses energy production, climate tech facilities, smart farms, and data centers."
We met CEO Dong-woo Kim, who is opening a new paradigm for future sewage treatment plants based on continuous technological innovation.
How is the futuristic sewage treatment plant 'Co-Flow Campus' proposed and implemented by BKT?
BKT has been developing technologies that view wastewater and waste as resources rather than pollutants and create economic value in the treatment process. As a result, he proposed a 'Co-Flow Campus' that transforms a 'sewage treatment plant that spends money' into a 'place that makes money'.
A biogas plant that converts organic matter in sewage into energy, a smart farm that uses nitrogen and phosphorus as fertilizer, a data center that recycles treated sewage into cooling water, and a 'Co-Flow Campus' that creates a water reuse facility that increases the value of the city on one site are innovative models that satisfy both economic and environmental feasibility beyond the limits of existing sewage treatment plants. 'Co-Flow' means that not only water but also energy, data, and economic value flow together. Currently, all core technologies have been verified and can be implemented immediately.
It is leading a new paradigm of 'sewage treatment plant meets data center'
BKT is pursuing a strategy to develop the sewage treatment plant site in a complex manner with essential urban infrastructure such as data centers. If a data center is built together with a sewage treatment plant, treated water can be used as cooling water for the data center instead of discharging, which can solve the problem of water shortage and lack of land at the same time. In addition, it has the advantage of effectively responding to climate change by reducing energy costs.
At the same time, it is expected to reduce the financial burden of local governments through long-term rental revenue, and to have positive effects such as increased population and an increase in land value. For this reason, it is judged that data center developers and local governments can achieve a win-win situation.
BKT came up with the idea of building a data center on the saved land after the successful undergrounding of the Jungnang Water Reclamation Center.
The 'Proteus' technology, which creates a new space in the existing sewage treatment plant, and the Co-Flow Campus, which builds a biogas plant, smart farm, and data center on it, are attracting great attention from global companies that are active in solving environmental issues such as ESG.
What is the current stage of commercialization of Proteus technology by BKT in the USA?
BKT's U.S. subsidiary 'Tomorrow Water' is speeding up the commercialization of Proteus technology. Two significant projects are currently underway, the first of which aims to produce the U.S. federal discharge water standard of 30 ppm for biological oxygen demand (30 ppm) and suspended solids (30 ppm) in less than one hour, and complete the nitrification process in less than two hours. It takes three hours to complete nitrogen removal using Proteus+, which simultaneously performs physical filtration and biological treatment, and twp™, which combines mainstream AMX technology, and is called the "Proteus 123 Project."
Proteus+ technology surprised the stakeholders with its excellent processing performance in the first round of verification. A verification report is expected to be released within this year, and it is planned to be the first to be commercialized in the United States, where discharge water standards vary from state to state.
The second project is the construction of a Proteus demonstration plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as part of a $13 million demonstration facility, with construction scheduled to begin in 2026. The project aims to test Proteus technology for two years and implement it on a large scale. Proteus technology has already been proven in Korea and China, but this project is the first to be applied to a large-scale sewage treatment plant in the United States. If successful, the project will help the U.S. and other countries around the world effectively respond to climate change.
Recently, it seems that BKT is expanding its business area as a water treatment-based climate technology company
BKT is strengthening its position as a climate technology company based on the water treatment business by utilizing TWP™ based on Proteus 123 and IUP (Integrated Upstream Process) for integrated digestion of organic waste resources.
In addition to carbon dioxide, the sewage treatment process emits a large amount of methane, which has a greenhouse effect 21 times higher than carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide (N2O), which is 310 times higher than carbon dioxide. However, TWP™ has obtained modeling results from experts that it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 32 to 61 percent and increase biogas production by more than 70 percent. Based on this, BKT is promoting the acquisition of carbon credits.
BKT is the only company in the world that owns all three core technologies: biogas production technology (AAD), biogas improvement and sludge reduction technology (Draco), and high-concentration nitrogen wastewater treatment technology (AMX) required for codigestion of organic waste resources.
In particular, IUP is BKT's representative climate technology that can produce high-value energy such as electricity, hydrogen, methanol, ethanol, and jet fuel using the produced and recovered waste resources beyond simply treating organic waste resources.
It is attracting attention by promoting the construction of the most compact sewage treatment plant tailored for developing countries
The reason for BKT's existence is “to solve humanity's sanitation problems in a natural way by creating a structure that increases economic benefits as more sewage is treated.” To this end, in 2016, the Tomorrow Water Project (hereinafter referred to as TWP) was registered as an initiative (#40493) on the UN SDGs platform to solve water problems in developing countries and has been working hard to develop the Co-Flow Campus and TWP™.
If TWP™, a sewage treatment technology that takes advantage of the warm climate of developing countries near the equator, is added to the Co-Flow Campus, it is expected to greatly contribute to the spread of sewage treatment plants in developing countries as it will be possible to build the world's most compact sewage treatment plant by reducing the facility cost, maintenance cost, and footprint to less than half compared to the existing sewage treatment plant.
Taking advantage of the fact that Anammox microorganisms work well in high water temperatures of more than 20 degrees Celsius throughout the year, BKT plans to apply 'TWP™', which combines 'Proteus+' and Mainstream AMX technology, to Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and countries near the equator.
The Co-Flow Campus project requires a considerable amount of money, and the strategic support of the EDCF is essential
The Co-Flow Campus model is a strategically valuable asset that can not only help solve environmental problems in developing countries that have been neglected in favor of economic development, but also secure a sustainable industrial advantage through innovation that competitors such as China and Japan do not have. In addition, if the various component technologies required for sewage treatment plants, centered on the main process, are made in Korea, it could create a significant opportunity for Korea to secure global competitiveness in the environmental industry through 'ship-to-ship overseas expansion'.
However, as this is a project that requires a large amount of funding, it is difficult to achieve the goal through private efforts alone without strategic support and consensus at the national level. Korea is steadily expanding its support to developing countries through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), but the construction of sewage treatment plants in developing countries and the implementation of the EDCF, which is currently carried out individually and unsystematically, requires a more strategic and systematic approach.
We hope that the combination of forward-looking and strategic government policies and private innovation will create a symbolic success story for solving humanity's environmental problems and enhancing national competitiveness.
CEO Dong-woo Kim
Mr. Kim has been recognized as an innovative leader by the UN SDGs Association as one of the 100 Global Sustainability Leaders for five consecutive years since 2019 for his work on TWP™. At the government ceremony for World Water Day in 2023, he was the first environmental company to receive the Dongtop Industrial Medal.
Mr. Kim has led BKT to the top group of the Sustainable Development Goals Business Index (SDGBI) global index for five consecutive years and is leading the company as an “innovative water company” designated by the Ministry of Environment to lead the global water market.
Link to original interview in the Korean media: http://www.ikld.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=302369
Credit: Sun Byungkyu redsun@ikld.kr
Source: Hankook Ilbo (http://www.ikld.kr)