The House Magazine of the Thermax Group Volume 39 No. 2 April-June 2009 Volume 39 No. 2 April-June 2009 Cover Attired in colourful clothes, pots perfectly balanced, these two women in Rajasthan are performing a thankless daily chore – bringing potable water to their homes for their men, children and cattle. In their arid surroundings water is precious. Not a drop to be spilled. Not a drop to be wasted. This conservation ethic is deeply ingrained and rain water is carefully harvested with indigenous systems, over the decades. Water is life. Even more so for them. Despite the gravity of the subject, the picture conveys a strangely positive feeling. Taking things in their stride. (Picture by Marie Luise Porsch) Back Cover 2008-2009 Highlights of the Year Comment Money doesn't talk, it swears. – Bob Dylan Printed on recycled paper Correspondents : J. NatesanHeating Vikas Tripathi Cooling Umesh Barde Power Veena Coutinho Chemical Jaise Itty Water &Waste SolutionsD.Bhanja Enviro Jenny Alexander Finance Shivangi Page Human Resources S. B. Chandak Administration Jiju K. T.Business Technology Group D. W. Bapat Research & Development R.B.Menon Manufacturing Nisha Rane Industrial RelationsParvati Venkatachalam Mumbai Rama Delhi Swati Aditya Kolkata Laxmi Gupta Chennai Noorjahan Khan Boiler & HeaterN. Haridas Thermax Engineering Construction Company ABCI Fireside is the quarterly house magazine of Thermax Limited, Pune. For private circulation only. Company related news/features may be reproduced only with the permission MEMBER of the Editor. Address : Thermax Limited,Thermax House, 14 Mumbai Pune Road, Wakdewadi, Pune 411 003, India. Tel : (020) 25542263 Fax : (020) 25541226 Fireside is also hosted on the website : www.thermaxindia.com Email : [email protected] [email protected] Thermax signs WHAT'S agreements with two NEW ? global majors for new- age technology in 2 waste water treatment 6 EXPRESSIONS # Biggest export order for Meher Pudumjee reflects on the pollution control company's performance and equipment for a emphasises the need to put one's project in Oman house in order and to look at markets with a different perspective # A new manu- in these trying times facturing facility for paper chemicals commissioned # Giant heater for B K Mathur, LUNCH Shell's bitumen terminal in Dubai Corporate Head WITH FS # The small power plant business – Safety & Health comes of age emphasises that safety is more than 18 A big order for oil field chemicals just wearing a helmet and shoes, # Hemant Joshi succeeds Govind Lal over a Chinese as CRM # Samir Raje to head paper meal with Ahmed chemicals # Thermax celebrates Bunglowala Technology Day # New takers for biomass based heaters even as oil ROUND UP prices dip # Thermax Drawing on the wins safety award examples of people from Greentech who have achieved distinction in their 8 Foundation # And field of activity, achievements of Malcolm Gladwell Thermax em- highlights the golden rule about long hours ployees and their of dedicated practice. family members SIGNPOSTS Excerpts from his best- 20 selling book, Outliers Gopal Kavalireddi on pickles that spice New gimmicks by up our daily lives American job SLICE OF # Natasha Rodricks- 25 seekers in the LIFE Naidu gives a low- VOICES recession # Why down on the great dullness, and not flamboyance, is the 28 Indian wedding card hallmark of tradition # and the successful CEOs Editor makes a point # and a poster on A FOOT about the pulling when we come closest to power of unusual perfection IN THE titles and names DOOR WHAT'S NEW ? Thermax signs technology agree leaders for waste water treatme hermax has recently entered into difficult-to-degrade effluents. The company Ttechnology agreements with two has over 25 years of experience and 140 global majors – Wehrle Umwelt reference plants where technologies like GmbH of Germany and GE Water & anaerobic treatment, sequencing batch The approach to Process Technologies, Canada – for superior reactors and membrane based filtration waste water membrane based technology in waste water systems have been deployed. treatment. The agreements will strengthen The agreement, valid for five years, includes treatment also the company's offerings for the treatment of Wehrle training Thermax engineers in new has evolved over both industrial effluents and municipal areas and providing assistance in turnkey the years. While sewage. execution of effluent treatment projects. the earlier norm The first technology tie-up with Wehrle is for treatment of highly varied and 'loaded' for treatment effluents – high in terms of biological and Thermax and GE have signed a technology focused only on chemical oxygen demand (BOD and COD) licensing agreement for ultra filtration and disposal, now the –fromindustriesbeforetheycanbe membrane bio reactor (MBR), an advanced discharged or reused. Such effluent is technology for sewage treatment and emphasis is on typically generated by industries like pharma recycling. The agreement was inked by reuse of the (bulk drugs), dyes and pigments, agro H Bala, Country Manager of GE and treated water. It chemicals, paper and pulp and distilleries. S Ramachandran of Thermax. is here that The agreement was signed by Erwin Under the agreement, which is valid for two membrane based Muehle, Managing Director of Wehrle years (with a joint evaluation after 12 and S Ramachandran, Executive Vice months), Thermax will engineer for clients technologies President (Chemical & Water) of Thermax. membrane filtration system using GE's become useful. guidelines. GE's MBR systems– installed as Wehrle is well known in the field of waste membrane modules and cassettes – can be water treatment using membrane based used for sewage treatment in municipal, systems and is a specialist in handling commercial and industrial applications. 2 precious ground water. The discharge of poorly treated industrial effluents makes the situation doubly dangerous as it adds hazardous chemicals and toxins to the unhygienic sewage dumped in the water bodies. Now, there are signs of change. Under the UN Millennium Development Goal, India has to make a determined effort to provide safe drinking water and improved sanitation to its masses. The government has taken several initiatives like the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) for 63 identified cities and Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT). These schemes are catalysing reforms and investments in public water and waste water Membrane basics treatment projects. for waste water ments with world The approach to waste water treatment treatment also has evolved over the years. While the Makes use of semi-permeable nt earlier norm for treatment membranes for the separation of focused only on disposal, now the emphasis is on suspended and dissolved solids reuse of the treated from water. water. It is here that membrane based The membranes have millions of micro- technologies become useful. They help to scopic pores on the surface. These form a treat effluents and barrier to impurities while allowing pure sewage to high levels water molecules to pass through. Water of cleanliness to meet is drawn through pores using a gentle pollution control suction. norms and to recycle water for various purposes – for Methods include micro filtration, ultra filtra- industrial process, tion, nano filtration and reverse osmosis. Raw sewage and its proper irrigation, gardening, treatment and S Ramchandran and colleagues toilet flushing and car with Wehrle and GE representatives wash. Increasingly becoming the preferred technology as it helps industry meet Treatment plants based on These include hotels, hospitals, IT parks, membrane based reactor stringent pollution control norms in malls, residential complexes, SEZs, institutes, (MBR) technology needs less a single step treatment and allows sewage treatment plants of a wide range of space compared to conventional water to be reused. industrial units. treatment plants and they can treat anywhere between 10,000 The tie-ups reflect the new opportunities Delivers higher performance emerging in the area of environment litres to five million litres per day. management. It is estimated that over 60 % Simpler in design, they do away with with a smaller footprint ofthesewagegeneratedbyIndiancitiesis secondary clarifier, filtration and disinfection dumped untreated in the canals and rivers of units. They can be fully automated and have the country. Ironically, the flooding of sewage the flexibility to scale up for increased is matched by the growing scarcity of clean capacities. water and the resulting exploitation of 3 A view of the plant : international standards New manufacturing plant for paper chemicals commissioned t the Thermax manufacturing an expert on AKD technology was present “This industry is A facility at Paudh, a new plant for duringthefirsttwotrialbatches.His paper chemicals has been expertise helped the Thermax project certainly looking commissioned. The state-of-the-art plant, execution team to get both the batches forward to with distributed control systems, has a ready with international specifications. manufacturing capacity of 12,000 tons per Georgia Pacific also lent its marketing improving the annum (TPA). From this plant Thermax support through Jim Johnston, their R&D quality of their will manufacture the new paper chemicals manager, who was with Bidrohi Sur, based on the technology tie-up with Business Development Manager for paper products and the Georgia Pacific of USA. chemicalsandhisteam.HeandSur