What topics does Aguato Insider cover?

Aguato Insider covers industrial and commercial water treatment technologies including reverse osmosis, ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, membrane bioreactors, boiler water treatment, cooling tower treatment, Legionella risk assessment, zero liquid discharge, and wastewater management. Articles are written for engineers, procurement managers, and operations teams.

What is the difference between ultrafiltration and nanofiltration?

Ultrafiltration (UF) removes suspended solids, bacteria, and large molecules using membranes with pore sizes of 0.01–0.1 microns. Nanofiltration (NF) has smaller pores (0.001 microns) and can partially remove dissolved salts, hardness, and low-molecular-weight organics. UF is used for clarification and disinfection; NF is used for softening and partial demineralisation.

How do I find a water treatment provider?

Aguato's provider directory lists industrial water treatment companies across 189 specialisations including membrane filtration, desalination, ZLD, and wastewater infrastructure. You can filter by technology, industry, country, and company size at aguato.com/providers.

What is zero liquid discharge (ZLD) in water treatment?

Zero liquid discharge (ZLD) is a water treatment strategy in which all wastewater is recovered and no liquid effluent is discharged to the environment. ZLD systems typically combine ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, and evaporation/crystallisation stages. They are used in industries with strict discharge regulations or where water scarcity makes maximum reuse essential.

Aguato Insider

Field notes from the water industry.

133 guides for the engineers who run plants and the buyers who pay for them.

What Is Nepti? Aguato's AI for Water Treatment Decisions

Nepti is Aguato's AI decision engine for industrial water. It ranks treatment options, models costs, and characterises water in under an hour.

10 min readMay 2026

Rows of industrial silos and tanks — one site, many competing treatment options

Costs & Procurement

How to Choose the Right Industrial Water Treatment Solution

Most industrial water treatment decisions are made by letting vendors set the agenda, and that is why so many systems underperform. A guide to characterising your challenge first, understanding what each major industry segment actually requires, and using AI to reach a data-backed specification before engaging the market.

16 min readMay 2026

Aerial view of an industrial facility’s interconnected process and utility systems

Costs & Procurement

Water as an Operational Risk: Why Industrial Efficiency Now Depends on Smarter Fluid Management

Water interruptions mean revenue interruptions. From hidden OPEX traps to emerging scarcity risks, learn why industrial water management is now a board-level issue.

25 min readFeb 2026

Latest guides

Every guide, newest first.

Bottled water on a filling line with a wave of process water — product quality starts with treated water

Industry Deep Dives

Food & Beverage Water Treatment: Standards and Systems

A single microbial failure on a product-contact surface costs $500,000 to $2 million in recalls and lost contracts. Full CAPEX, OPEX, technology selection, and CIP standards inside, plus the effluent side benchmarked against 107 published food and beverage treatment cases with real influent and effluent data.

20 min readSep 2026

Aerial view of an open-pit mine with terraced benches and process water pooling below

Industry Deep Dives

Mining Wastewater Treatment: Technologies, Compliance, and the Closure Liability Few Operators Cost Properly

What separates a mine that treats its water economically from one that leaks money for a century, covering acid mine drainage, cyanide, sulphate, selenium, and the closure liability behind every treatment-train decision, now benchmarked against 14 published mine-water treatment cases with real influent and effluent data.

20 min readSep 2026

Labelled inlet and outlet beakers from a textile dyehouse effluent plant — near-black dye liquor beside the decolourised treated water

Industry Deep Dives

Textile Wastewater Colour Removal: Costs, Technologies, and the Reuse Decision

Textile dye effluent runs USD 0.40 to 1.80 per m3 to treat for discharge and USD 1.20 to 4.20 per m3 to recover for reuse, and the wrong technology choice locks a dye house into a USD 200,000 to 1.5M lifecycle penalty. This guide benchmarks the decision against 22 published textile treatment cases with real influent and effluent data, from a 100,000 m3/day district works to delivered reuse retrofits.

22 min readSep 2026

Stone dye and tanning pits filled with coloured liquors at a traditional tannery

Industry Deep Dives

Leather and Tanning Wastewater: Treatment Challenges

Mix your tannery streams instead of segregating them and you destroy chromium recovery, create a sulphide hazard, and push toward forced ZLD. Here is the segregation, recovery, and treatment strategy that keeps a tannery compliant, benchmarked against 17 published tannery treatment cases with real influent and effluent data.

27 min readSep 2026

Stacked rolls of finished paper — the water-hungry product of a pulp and paper mill

Industry Deep Dives

Pulp and Paper Wastewater Treatment: Technologies and Compliance

As a mill cuts fresh-water intake from 50 to under 10 m3 per tonne, contaminants concentrate and a plant that worked at high dilution fails. Here is how to treat COD, AOX, and colour through water closure without an exceedance, benchmarked against 12 published pulp and paper treatment cases with real influent and effluent data.

26 min readSep 2026

Green beverage bottles moving along a bottling line at a food and beverage plant

Industry Deep Dives

Food and Beverage Wastewater Treatment: Loads, Trains, and Real Benchmarks

Food and beverage effluent runs about ten times the organic load of municipal sewage and swings hard with the production and sanitation cycle. Here is what 107 real treatment plants across 32 countries actually achieve, the train that works, and the nutrient trap that catches carbon-only plants.

16 min readSep 2026

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A large chemical and petrochemical processing complex with distillation columns, reactors, and storage tanks

Industry Deep Dives

Chemical and Petrochemical Wastewater Treatment: Toxicity, Recalcitrance, and Real Benchmarks

Chemical and petrochemical effluent is the most heterogeneous industrial wastewater there is, from under 100 to over 80,000 mg/L COD, often toxic to the biology meant to treat it. Here is what 45 real plants achieve, the train that handles the recalcitrant and toxic fractions, and the salinity and metals biology ignores.

16 min readSep 2026

Pink pharmaceutical tablets moving through a production machine at a drug-manufacturing plant

Industry Deep Dives

Pharmaceutical Wastewater Treatment: High-Strength Effluent, Nitrogen, and the API Question

Pharmaceutical effluent is defined by a huge and variable organic load, from a few hundred to over 20,000 mg/L COD, plus a heavy nitrogen burden. Here is what the published plants achieve, the train that handles the swing, and an honest read of what the data does and does not cover.

16 min readSep 2026

A large pile of discarded plastic bottles and packaging at a landfill, the waste that generates leachate

Industry Deep Dives

Landfill Leachate Treatment: Ammonia, the COD Floor, and the Age Problem

Landfill leachate is defined by very high ammonia, a stubborn recalcitrant COD, and a chemistry that shifts as the landfill ages. Here is what 28 real plants achieve, why ammonia usually drives the design, and where biology hits a floor it cannot cross.

15 min readSep 2026

Aerial view of brine evaporation ponds in ochre and green tones, the kind of concentrate management infrastructure the collaboration focuses on

Aguato News

Aguato and Brine Consulting: Complex Water Projects, Scoped by Specialists

Technically challenging desalination, ZLD and brine projects on Aguato can now be reviewed and scoped by Brine Consulting specialists before they reach the market. What changes for project owners and providers.

5 min readAug 2026

Sterile vials and purified water containers under cold laboratory light — the end use of USP-grade high-purity water

Industry Deep Dives

High Purity Water for Pharmaceuticals: USP Standards Explained

Pharmaceutical manufacturers operate three distinct water grades, each with different USP limits, system architectures, and validation requirements. Getting the wrong grade into the wrong process step does not just fail an audit. The complete guide to PW, WFI, and pure steam selection, system design, and continuous compliance.

24 min readJun 2026

Operator’s gloved hands on a valve — the daily reality of plant operations and maintenance

Costs & Procurement

Water Treatment Plant O&M: Build vs Buy vs Outsource

The choice between in-house operations, outsourced O&M, and water-as-a-service is not primarily a cost decision. It is a decision about risk transfer, compliance liability, and whether water treatment is a core competency or a support function. The framework for getting it right.

18 min readJun 2026

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