Last week the International Desalination Association (IDA) hosted the 2021 International Water Reuse and Recycling Conference in Rome, Italy.

The program combined plenary, panel, and technical sessions focused on advanced technologies for water reuse and recycling. Synauta team members Nick Herold, Katie Higgins and Mike Dixon attended, with opportunities to see familiar faces and meet new faces.

As part of the Cutting Edge Technologies session, Nick presented ‘Optimizing reverse osmosis chemical cleaning costs and avoiding scaling using machine learning at two reuse/industrial facilities’. The Co-Authors included Tim Pritchard and Neil Palmer from Osmoflo.

“The questions following our presentation show the industry understands the value of machine learning to optimize reverse osmosis; now it is more a question of how to implement it in their plant,” said Herold.

For Katie, Senior Data Scientist, “What excites me the most after this conference are the many technologies under development to make these processes more efficient for municipal and industrial end users. Machine learning has a bright future to be an important part of this, so we as an industry can work together to reduce GHGs and more towards sustainable communities and economies.”

CEO Mike Dixon also presented as part of a panel discussion: Public Utility Challenges: PPP for Water Reuse Projects.

Mike notes, “This session acknowledged an increasingly popular project delivery structure in the water sector. It’s also key to recognize that the role of private technology companies and the importance of cybersecurity in public-private partnerships will only increase.”

Also on the panel, Mr Gonzalo Delacamara mentioned the power production sector was a long way ahead of the water sector on certain items. This was confirmed by Mike who shared that, “…compared to the power industry, we are behind on the benefits of optimization using AI by 20 years.”

Synauta would like to thank the IDA team, committee members, co-chairs and presenters for their time and effort to make the event so productive and enjoyable.

As the first face-to-face conference for some time, it was a safe and welcoming experience with a special opportunity to reflect on the role of water from ancient history to the future.

To learn more about our results, like those presented in Rome, contact us for case studies.