Preface
The imbalance between water supply and demand has become an urgent global challenge. It is estimated that by 2030, the world’s water demand will increase by 50%, and one-third of the population will face water-stressed conditions. Taiwan, as an island country, faces particularly severe water challenges. Its geographical environment featuring steep terrain, short rivers, and silt-ladenreservoirs, coupled with alternating droughts and floods caused by climate change, makes water resources management extremely complicated and difficult.
Taiwan’s Water Shortage Crisis Requires Water Resources Management Strategies
Taiwan has long faced the problem of uneven rainfall distribution, resulting in unstable water supply. To address this issue, government agencies are actively promoting the development of water resources such as reclaimed water and desalination to enhance water stability and resilience while mitigating water supply risks. These measures not only reflect current water challenges in Taiwan but also address the needs of preparation for possible climate extremes in the future.
In recent years, the government has implemented a series of relevant policies and regulations, such as the Reclaimed Water Resources Development Act, Water Supply Act, and Water Act. These policies and regulations have set clear goals and plans for wastewater reclamation, low wastewater discharge, and industrial water allocation/conservation. For example, the recycled water utilization is expected to reach 1.32 million tons/day in 2031, of which industrial water supply accounts for 500,000 tons/day, with a recovery rate targeted to increase from 75% to 80%. These specific targets not only reflect Taiwan’s emphasis on water resource management, they also provide developmental directions for industries facing the crisis of water shortage.
ITRI’s Short-, Mid- and Long-Term Water Resilience Projects for 2035
ITRI’s forward-looking 2035 Technology Strategy and Roadmap aims to improve the stability and resilience of water supply. It includes short-, mid-, and long-term goals, covering the improvement of purification technologies for diversified water source, the advancement of high-efficiency desalination technologies, and the development of energy and resource integration technologies.
The short-term goals are focused on enhancing the purification technology of diversified water sources and lower grade industrial water supply, and developing key proprietary microporous materials with high hydrophobicity. For example, through the cooling tower side-stream desalination system, the amount of water replenishment and blowdown can be reduced, while high-quality reusable water resources can be produced. In addition, we will develop high-efficiency water mist capture technology and low-concentration trace substance recovery technology to increase the supply rate of industrial recycled water, reduce water recycling costs, and enable valuable substance recycling.
The focus of the mid-term plan is to develop a multi-stage desalination system, including high-flux membrane materials and low-carbon high-permeability desalination modules, to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption of water reclamation process. At the same time, we will develop high-variability water source treatment technology and intelligent water treatment systems to stabilize water production quality that meets industrial water standards. A low operation cost demonstration plant for industrial water supply will also be established.
The long-term plan is to focus on energy and resources integration technologies. The goal is to develop an energy-efficient desalination system, which can effectively increase the water production rate, extract valuable substances from brine, and generate electricity through salinity differences. Through brine reuse technology that fully integrates energy and resources, we can convert ions into reusable acids/alkalis or use salinity differences to generate electricity. In addition, we will develop smart water supply management systems and treatment technologies to ensure that when the system is affected by natural or man-made disasters, it can still maintain safe and stable water quality without human attendance and operation. With these approaches, the goals of unmanned water supply systems and recycling of discharged water can be both fulfilled.
ITRI Invests in Innovative Water Treatment Technologies to Enhance Overall Water Resource Stability
The water treatment technologies developed by ITRI have many practical applications and have proven its effectiveness in numerous cases both in Taiwan and overseas. Taking Taiwan’s semiconductor industry’s reclaimed water plant as an example, BioNET and fluidized bed crystallization (FBC) technologies were used to improve the treatment efficiency and quality stability of reclaimed water. These two technologies remove micropollutants and hardness respectively from wastewater and serve as pre-treatment of the reverse osmosis (RO) process. They extend the service life of the RO membrane and ensure that the reclaimed water meets the high-quality requirements of the pure water used in the semiconductor manufacturing process.
In desalination technology, ITRI’s multi-stage desalination system uses an Electrodialysis Reversal (EDR) module and is equipped with a low-carbon emission decentralized design, which alleviates the operating pressure of the desalination system and reduces carbon emissions and energy consumption in the water production process. This technology provides additional water security for Taiwan in the face of extreme climate events and can be flexibly applied to drought relief, significantly enhancing the resilience of both domestic and industrial water supply during drought events.
ITRI has also proposed innovative solutions for desalination brine’s reuse and recycling. Through Recovery to Acid and Alkali (R2A) technology, ions in brine can be converted into acid/alkali, accomplish the goals of both reusing discharged water and reducing carbon emissions. Moreover, ITRI has developed blue energy technology that uses seawater brine to generate electricity by harvesting salinity gradient power from seawater desalination RO brine.
For cooling tower water treatment, ITRI’s side-stream treatment system can reduce the amount of water replenishment and blowdown, and save chiller power consumption. This technology has completed field testing and verification with cooling water towers in ITRI’s campus and will be introduced into the petrochemical and steel industries. This technology is expected to bring significant water and power savings to the high water-consuming industries.
Agricultural irrigation drainage recycling is also one of the diversified water resources that have received more attention in recent years. In Taiwan, about 1.5 billion tons of agricultural irrigation water is directly discharged every year. If this water can be recycled and used, it will become a stable and resilient water resource. Currently, ITRI already has mature technologies for treatment and reuse of agricultural irrigation drainage. In the future, we will plan to use agricultural residual water as a diversified water source to enhance the stability of overall water resources.
Conclusion
Looking ahead, the challenges facing Taiwan’s water resource management remain daunting. However, with relentless efforts and innovations by our research teams, ITRI are leading Taiwan's industry to shift from traditional wastewater treatment to a new model of resource recycling. Such a transformation will increase the in-plant supply rate of recycled water for industries and enable efficient utilization and recycling of water resources. Meanwhile, energy and resource integration such as converting brine into valuable resources will bridge water and resource recycling technologies and allow us to build a more stable, efficient, and sustainable water supply system for Taiwan. These powerful technology solutions will provide valuable insights and serve as a model for other regions around the world.
