"90% of crop protection products removed from water by oxidation"

Emission and purification of crop protection products has received a lot of attention in recent years. The regulations increasingly restrict the entrepreneur, and high emissions could further limit the product range in the future.

To solve this issue, in 2014, Dutch company CleanLight developed a water purifier, and had it tested by a number of agencies, including the Nutrient Management Institute NMI, in Wageningen. "The results were quite interesting: The amount of residue in an ICB container was reduced by 90% within a week", they stated.

Project Manager Arne Aiking explains: "This device operates on the basis of oxidation. All organic substances, such as crop protection products, but also bacteria and fungi, are oxidized.”

Aiking emphasizes that this device has not yet been submitted for certification: "Our customers do not use this device to clean the water to such an extent that they are allowed to discharge it. But they use it to clean the residual liquid so that they can reuse the liquid as ‘water’ for the next tank mix. This avoids the need to discharge the residual liquid. For our current customers, certification is not a requirement, since our customers do not discharge the treated residual liquid".

Account Manager David Symanzig adds: "This device does not require the purchase, transportation and storage of chemicals such as ozone or hydrogen peroxide. You put the plug into the socket and let the natural oxidation process take place 24/7. Indoors or outdoors, depending on the content, after a week the amount of residue in the liquid has fallen by 90% in the ICB, but the water is not as yet drinkable. 

Arne: "The use of this device does not require expensive chemicals, and the purchase cost is less than € 7,500. But our customers make the investment mainly because they want to avoid high peak emissions with all the consequences of product packaging in the future."