Gap Filled in Water Maker Industry

Fresh water is essential on board of ships. It is needed for drinking purposes, but also for washing or the use of technical devices. Of course, a ship can decide to work with bunker ships to get their fresh water on board, but this solution has many disadvantages: it is expensive, time consuming and the quality of the water can vary heavily. Water makers are a good alternative and Theunissen Technical Trading is an experienced supplier in this market.

Theunissen is a family business based in Malden, the Netherlands, that employs 18 people. Henk Volmerink, managing director and owner, says: “We supply various products for marine, offshore and industry purposes. We supply, service and commission communication and fire detection systems, but also offer equipment like search lights, lighting and navigation lights, water makers and windscreen wipers. Next to that, we supply modular transit systems to seal off cables against water, gas and fire for industry, infrastructure, energy and utilities. We are not only a wholesaler that assembles different systems to the clients’ needs, but we offer service as well. We do commissioning work, repairs and conversions of systems. Our philosophy is to be a supplier of only a limited number of product groups and brands, as we want to have in-depth knowledge in-house about all our products. We call our company a technical trading company.”

Reverse osmosis

One of the successful products Theunissen supplies, is the Danfoss Sea Recovery’s water maker. Water makers are delivered to the offshore industry, dredging industry, for cruise ships, yachts and workboats, just to name a few. But also on shore, water makers are used, for example in very dry regions like the Middle East. Bas Thijssen, sales manager, explains how the water makers work: “Water makers suck in the sea water and convert it to fresh water, using the principle of reverse osmosis, a membrane-technology filtration method. Under high pressure, the sea water is pushed through a membrane. The salt stays behind and the fresh water is collected in a tank, where follow-up treatment takes place.” Theunissen is supplier of the Danfoss Sea Recovery water makers, that have water making capacities ranging from 650 litres a day, used on for example small pleasure yachts, to 1.2 million litres a day, used on for example cruise ships. An alternative to the water makers is a system with a vaporiser, that uses residual heat. Thijssen: “The disadvantage however is that if there is not enough residual heat or the engine is not running, one cannot make enough water and is again dependent on bunker ships to receive the fresh water.”

Java Sea

Danfoss Sea Recovery recently launched a new type of water maker, the Java Sea. This new type has been developed to fill the gap between water makers for the small yachting market (up to six cubic metres) and water makers for commercial use (from ten cubic metres onwards). According to Thijssen, the demand for such a water maker to be used in for example small workboats and bigger yachts was high. “But I also expect the offshore industry to be interested in the Java Sea for the use on offshore platforms, as these platform often still work with expensive bunker ships to get their fresh water. The Java Sea has a capacity between 3.5 and twelve cubic metres, producing 3,500 litres to 12,000 litres water a day, and is completely automatic. By incorporating an automatic pressure regulating system, no operator is needed to regulate the pressure, which is unique to the Java Sea. The appliance adapts itself to the temperature of the water and the level of salt and therefore can continuously produce fresh water. With one touch the appliance will start and finish the water production automatically. All parts of the appliance are placed in one single unit of 75 centimetres by 75 centimetres, including accessories like the automatic fresh water flush which rinses the machine with fresh water to clean it from the salt. The LCD monitoring system allows the user to optimises the pre- filter and membrane performance.”

Interest

As the Java Sea was only put in the market last January, Theunissen doesn’t have any response from the market yet, but Thijssen reports: “We already offered the first Java Sea to one of our clients. As several shipyards already buy their water makers from us, we think that this new product might generate a lot of attention from these shipyards, as the Java Sea might well be of interest to them.”

Gail van den Hanenberg