OSMOFLO-A significant enterprise with a global footprint, wherever there is a need for drinking, process, high purity or recycled water, Osmoflo can provide the solution.
Osmoflo started out as a designer and fabricator of medical equipment in Adelaide in 1991, as original owners Marc and Annie Fabig quickly saw the enormous potential for membrane-based water treatment and desalination.
Osmoflo has evolved from that point to become the largest Australian headquartered global desalination and water recycling company, driven by a vision of a sustainable water future.
With the main office now located in Burton, South Australia, and operations located across the country as well as the Middle East, India, and Asia, the company provides world class capabilities in the delivery of water treatment solutions as a designer, builder and operator of world-class desalination and membrane projects.
As of this publishing, well over 600 total projects have been delivered by Osmoflo globally since its inception, and the company is consistently operating and maintaining around 100 facilities globally.
Along with a network of offices and projects across four continents, Osmoflo is further backed by the financial strength and extensive worldwide reach of its shareholder, Hitachi Zosen Corporation of Japan (HITZ). Osmoflo is a key pillar in HITZ’s global water business, providing expertise and capability in desalination, advanced water treatment and wastewater reuse, brine minimisation and critical resource recovery, as well as global rentals including rapidly deployable treatment and desalination solutions.
Bolstered by extensive industry experience and strict adherence to the highest quality standards, the company caters to a diverse range of industries and markets, including oil and gas, mining, power, food and beverage, municipal, coal seam gas, defence, green hydrogen, advanced manufacturing and agribusiness.
“For its size, with around 250 employees globally, our business is surprisingly diverse” – Osmoflo’s Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Carmine Ciccocioppo.
The purpose that lies at the core of Osmoflo is simple – to preserve the world’s most precious resource – water.
From it’s beginning to the present, Osmoflo has evolved through dedicated investment in innovation. By so doing, Osmoflo has remained a key player on the global stage of water treatment solutions, thriving in a vital industry that preserves a safe water supply across locations spanning the Middle East, Asia, India, and the company’s home nation of Australia.
“Innovation is in Osmoflo’s DNA. From its earliest beginnings in 1991, Osmoflo has been fortunate to attract technically and commercially astute and creative people. We build and operate plants desalinating water with very challenging chemistry in the most remote parts of outback Australia. With encouraging leadership, our people have gone beyond accepted technical boundaries to find solutions. We look forward to the future, knowing that the next generation of Osmoflo desalters, standing on the shoulders of experienced colleagues, will bring about even more innovative solutions to help solve the world’s water challenges.” – Osmoflo’s Chief Technical Officer, Neil Palmer.
Today, that reach is spreading even further, as Osmoflo seeks to explore further geographic expansion into the Pacific region, North America and to widen its presence across Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and India.
Substantial investment into Research and Development (R&D) is the lifeblood that fuels Osmoflo’s journey of continual innovation, and one that keeps the company at the forefront of industry development and able to provide worlds-best solutions across the markets that it serves.
“Innovation is not just about finding new ways to solve old problems, but also about anticipating new challenges and developing solutions that can help us thrive in a rapidly changing world. For Osmoflo, innovation means continually pushing the boundaries of what is possible to ensure that we can provide safe, reliable, and sustainable water for generations to come. That’s why our R&D facility is called the Edge.” – Osmoflo’s Senior Manager for Innovation, Research & Development, Julien Anese.
As Osmoflo continues to strengthen its reputation and widen its capabilities beyond the traditional scope of a water treatment specialist, it is exploring a far broader range of process applications.
In keeping with this spirit of new areas of exploration, Osmoflo’s brand echoes the company’s versatility and capacity to move with change. Above all, the motto of ‘a circular future for water’, champions Osmoflo’s overarching commitment to a circular economy.
“This brand reflects our aspiration, consistent with that of our shareholder Hitachi Zosen Corporation of Japan, to make a meaningful and fundamental contribution to the sustainable management of water across the planet, and pursue our mission of providing innovative, sustainable and value-based water solutions that contribute to a circular economy,” – Osmoflo’s Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Carmine Ciccocioppo.
Homing in on particular areas of investment and the research taking place behind the resource, a major focus for Osmoflo’s R&D and Innovation Team concerns improving and enhancing the functionality and capability of its remote monitoring and control platform, Plant Connect.
The ongoing optimisation of Plant Connect is key to effectively servicing Osmoflo’s ever-increasing number of customers around the globe. This is especially the casein remote and regional areas, where remote monitoring brings to those clients world-class, expert operation and maintenance advice allowing them to achieve the best whole-of-life value from their water treatment assets. Currently there are close to 100 plants that Osmoflo is actively monitoring on 24/7 basis, with this number constantly on the increase.
This expert support to operating plants is further enhanced through the utilisation of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities, both of which have been proven by Osmoflo to provide tangible benefits for its customers in terms of optimised chemical and power usage whilst also significantly improving membrane life.
Osmoflo also invests in high recovery technologies through which it can improve and refine its patented Osmoflo Brine Squeezer (OBS), which the company first developed in the early 2000’s. The Osmoflo Brine Squeezer has since been fully commercialised to become one of the most successful and well proven non-thermal brine concentration technologies available in the market today with several full-scale plants now having been built and operated for a number of years.
“We will work with our various industry partners to develop even higher recovery solutions based on complementary technologies such as osmotically assisted reverse osmosis (OARO) and solvent extraction,” Osmoflo’s Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director, Carmine Ciccocioppo.
Leveraging technology to implement sustainable water management that minimises waste streams and accelerates its customers’ paths towards sustainability and carbon neutrality, Osmoflo will continue to chart a future course that focuses on supporting a circular economy.
Osmoflo is proud to be a homegrown Adelaide organisation in the provision of such a fundamental and critical resource. And even though the company continues to grow, develop and expand to all corners of the globe with unique and tailored solutions provided to thousands of individuals and organisations, its history and origin will always be fundamental in the work it does to represent this great city and the country it comes from.
