Brentwood is a family-owned, family-run company, headquartered in Reading, PA, USA. Their core competency is processing plastics and using plastic materials in innovative ways. A few product applications include getting power to areas that need it, treating water that people drink, and providing products that prevent exhaust air and gases from being emitted into the environment.
What began as a small family business, founded with the simple goal of solving challenges for customers, has transformed into a vertically integrated corporation that serves customers across the globe. Today, Brentwood runs 15 world-class facilities in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Germany, Czech Republic, India, and Thailand.
In January 2022, Brentwood acquired ENEXIO Water Technologies, expanding the company’s global footprint, adding new competencies, and enabling growth of Brentwood’s existing product lines.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
BRENTWOOD: In Europe, Brentwood is focused on water and wastewater treatment, cooling tower, and mass transfer applications.
On a global scale, the company develops, engineers, and produces plastic components and solutions for medical packaging, consumer goods, stormwater management, construction, and industrial battery applications.
In this interview, we will focus exclusively on the topic of water and wastewater treatment.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
BRENTWOOD: Polychem® has been a globally recognized brand for decades, offering a plastic chain scraper solution for rectangular sedimentation tanks. These systems offer a lightweight and corrosion-free alternative to sludge scrapers made of stainless steel. Recently, Brentwood released an improvement to this system, called TrueSpan.
The TrueSpan system is composed of a field-adjustable head shaft and stub shaft that have the adaptability to fit a wide range of tank sizes. Featuring a design that reduces upfront engineering and lead time, TrueSpan was designed with flexibility in mind.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
BRENTWOOD: Brentwood has proven expertise in drinking water and wastewater treatment, specifically sedimentation technology, sludge collection and removal systems, and biofilm processes. Our engineers capitalize on experience with numerous treatment processes to design the best solutions for unique applications, successfully treating and recycling water.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
BRENTWOOD: Brentwood is active in both the municipal and industrial market segments globally. We find that plant managers, superintendents, and engineers in this sector are seeking further education about the various water and wastewater treatment technologies available in order to select the best, most cost-effective systems for their applications.
In this respect, we are excited to partner with them and offer engineering, design, and consulting services to help each plant meet its specific goals.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
BRENTWOOD: It is undisputed – water is a scarce resource. This makes it imperative to collect water that has already been used and make it usable again.
Weather events such as heavy rainfall are also being reported with increasing frequency, so here too, we need solutions to absorb the rainwater and pass it on to wastewater plants for treatment and reuse.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
BRENTWOOD: As stated previously, we are specialists in sedimentation technology, sludge collection and removal systems, and biofilm processes.
Let us first look at our solutions for sedimentation. TUBEdek® lamellas and Brentwood’s IFR Series Tube Settlers are recognized globally as two highly efficient means of separating solids from the water, in both drinking water and wastewater treatment. With various channel inclinations, channel lengths, and module sizes, TUBEdek and IFR can achieve increases in sedimentation area of 400-900%. This allows high volume flows to be treated within a small area and the capacity of existing sedimentation plants to be increased without additional construction measures.
In terms of sludge collection and removal, we discussed the Polychem system above, with the new TrueSpan improvement. We also offer the SedVac™ system, which is designed to clean your clarifier by effectively removing the compression zone layer of sludge. SedVac also provides a unique cost advantage for sludge removal in long-length tanks. Where traditional chain and flight systems would require additional chain, flights, tracking, wear shoes, and associated components, the SedVac unit only requires a hose and an extended track assembly.
The biological treatment process makes use of the metabolism of microorganisms to convert organic nitrogen and carbonaceous or phosphorus compounds into settleable substances. Our products for trickling filter applications, MBBR, or fixed bed media processes serve as carriers for the biofilm, resulting in more robust and reliable systems.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2023?
BRENTWOOD: Our intention is to make all Brentwood and ENEXIO Water Technologies customers aware of the acquisition as we will operate solely under the Brentwood name beginning in 2024.
Bringing these two companies together has resulted in hundreds of years of combined experience in the water and wastewater treatment market. We are confident that leveraging our global reach and knowledge will enable us to grow and continue providing useful systems and services to our customers.
Contact person for Eastern Europe:
Anja Rach: anja.rach@brentwoodindustries.com