In the current and future trends in water security, regulatory trends and innovation in the filtration industry there needs to be closely integrated. The reality of water scarcity is finally starting to awaken the world as climate change is directly affecting the worldwide population. Water scarcity, in a broad sense, is not only the availability of clean potable water but also movement of fresh water into saline water from ice caps and glaciers melting into the sea, fresh water pollution, and the distribution of non-saline water as some areas get inundated with rain that mostly runs off eventually into the sea. It is estimated that 50% of the worldwide population will be affected by water scarcity.

There are many directions innovation in the filtration industry is addressing this problem such as sea and brackish water desalination via Reverse Osmosis, Forward Osmosis the Membrane Distillation that can make acceptable water according to the regulatory agencies around the world. Unfortunately there it ends up with a concentrated brine that can increase the salinity of sea water or has to be disposed of safely. Innovative filtration research to get as close as possible to Zero Liquid Disposal and benefitable use of the dry discharge is in process. The limits of environmental disposal are not clearly defined by the regulatory process.

The major focus of this presentation is the treatment and reuse of industrial waste water as beneficial fresh water. This is a broader definition of potable water as it is not for human of animal consumption but for application in returning it to industrial purposes or agriculture or gray water, etc. In the most part, this is not controlled by regulatory agencies. Will it ever be under the regulatory authority? An example is the Orange County Water Authority is currently taking municipal waste water and treating it for injection into the ground water to “impede the inflow of sea water” but in reality, is being pumped out for potable water use so indirectly going from potty to pot. My focus or this presentation is taking a waste water from a “point of creation” to a degree of cleanliness, typically as clean as city water, for reuse in the industrial setting. While this may seem like a small step in correcting water scarcity and is on a single unit setting but when taken in thousands of applications can be significant. An example, is one automotive assembly plant can reduce their purchase of city water over 100,000,000 gallons of water per year and this in the overall industrial setting is a small user. Since it is only for internal use, it is not currently regulated.