The aim of the Aquapolo Project, being carried out for Sabesp (the São Paulo State water and sewer company) in a 15,000-sq.m area on the grounds of the ABC Sewage Treatment Plant (ABC STP) at the boundary between São Paulo City and São Caetano do Sul, is to provide water recycling services to Greater São Paulo’s main industrial district. It is also the best example of what could be called full synergy among three subsidiaries of the same organization. Three Odebrecht Organization companies are taking part in this project: Quattor, a subsidiary of Braskem, Foz do Brasil, which operates in the environmental engineering sector, and Odebrecht Infraestrutura, which is responsible for building the infrastructure facilities.

The result of a BRL 253-million investment, this project will supply recycled water to companies based at the Capuava Petrochemical Complex in the ABC Paulista region. The water will be transported from the Industrial Water Plant in São Paulo City to the industrial district via a 17-km steel pipeline that will run through Santo Andre and São Caetano counties. The main client will be Quattor. Investments and operations will be carried out by Aquapolo Ambiental, a Special Purpose Company (SPC) set up by Foz do Brasil (51%) and Sabesp (49%), through a 34-year contract that will extend until 2043.

The raw materials for the plant will be supplied by Sabesp’s STP, which collects and treats sewage from the ABC region and the East Zone of São Paulo. After undergoing primary and secondary treatment, it will be returned to Ribeirão do Meninos, a tributary of the Tamanduateí River, which flows into the Tiete. The Aquapolo plant will ensure that much of this water receives tertiary treatment, thereby making it suitable for industrial use on a large scale.

São Paulo Governor Alberto Goldman observes: “This will be the largest plant of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere and the fifth largest in the world.” Aquapolo will produce up to 1,000 liters per second of treated water. “Through this new venture, Sabesp is fulfilling its goal of being an environmental solutions business,” says Gesner Oliveira, the President of the state-owned water and sewer company.

In addition to benefiting the industries that use water in their processes, which will no longer run the risk of shortages, the project has another important advantage: Sabesp will increase the supply of treated drinking water for the São Paulo metropolitan area, where water sources are becoming increasingly scarce. The amount of first-use water that will no longer be consumed by industries is large enough to continuously supply a city of 350,000 inhabitants.

The Aquapolo plant will supply up to 650 l/s of water for industrial use, but its design allows for further expansion to over 350 l/s, to meet the demand from potential clients in São Paulo, Santo Andre and São Caetano. “Through this project, we are ensuring the perpetuity of the petrochemical complex, which will no longer depend on water from the Tamanduateí River and first-use water from springs,” says Guilherme Paschoal, Foz do Brasil’s Project Director at Aquapolo Ambiental. “Without a guaranteed supply of water for their long-term projects, these companies would certainly lose competitiveness,” he adds.

Currently, companies at the petrochemical complex obtain water from two sources: a treatment plant at Petrobras’s Capuava Refinery (RECAP), Petrobras, which uses water from the Tamanduateí, and additional sources, totaling 380 l/s, and Sabesp, which produces potable water at a rate of 191 l/s.

Fadlo Eduardo Haddad, Process Engineering Manager at Quattor’s Basic Chemicals Units and the company’s Manager for the Aquapolo Project, points out: “Of all the projects the company had studied over the past years, this was the one that was most guaranteed to achieve two basic goals: sustainability and reliability.”

In addition to synergy and sustainability, Emyr Costa, the Project Director for Odebrecht Infraestrutura, underscores an essential factor for the project’s success: “the state-of-the-art technology being used.” The water treated by the ABC STP will first use an ultrafiltration membrane called a Tertiary Membrane Bio-Reactor (TMBR), with some of the output going through reverse osmosis membranes, similar to the process of desalinating seawater. This additional step is designed to ensure the desired level of purification.

“The magnitude of this investment, the amount of water to be produced and the technology being introduced represent an unprecedented scale for the Southern Hemisphere, so Aquapolo is breaking several paradigms at once,” says Fernando Santos-Reis, Entrepreneurial Leader (CEO) of Foz do Brasil.

Another major challenge is the construction of the pipeline, which has already begun, in an area as densely populated as the ABC region. The methods chosen to avoid overbreak on the surface include pipe jacking, which employs a hydraulic jack to drive a concrete shield with a diameter of 1.5 m into a service tunnel, where the pipeline will then be inserted. The other is the tunnel lining method, which is excavated manually and uses 1.4-m diameter steel shields, which are assembled step-by-step to facilitate the insertion of the pipeline. In some less populated areas, the pipeline will be laid in open trenches, and other sections will be installed above ground, supported by concrete blocks.

According to the contract signed by Aquapolo Ambiental and Sabesp, the Aquapolo system can store recycled water in four large tanks that the STP is not using. A pilot plant has been installed next to those tanks to simulate the processing stages that will be used at the future treatment facility. It processes sewage treated by Sabesp through the combined systems – ultrafiltration membranes and reverse osmosis - producing recycled water with the same characteristics that the actual plant will deliver.

Amanda Cavalhero, 26, an environmental engineer who joined Odebrecht a little over a month ago, is responsible for supervising the tests at the pilot plant, which was installed by technicians from Koch Membrane Systems of the United States. A wastewater treatment expert, Amanda says her main job is to check whether the water produced at the pilot plant complies with the client’s specifications in order to confirm the parameters used at the Aquapolo Project. “We can safely say we have achieved excellent quality water that is nearly as pure as drinking water, even if it’s just for industrial use,” she explains.