Work with us on the improvement of a membrane system

Internship Assignment / Graduation Assignment

Name of the project

-             Pilot unit Colubris Cleantech: work with us to improve the environment.

Bachelor / Master

-             Chemical Engineering

-             Applied Physics

-             Mechanical Engineering

Over Colubris Cleantech

Colubris Cleantech is a family business from Winterswijk. Since its foundation in 1984, the company has developed into a reliable partner in solving complex environmental problems related to waste water, waste recycling and biological resources. The company's focus is therefore divided into 3 divisions: water, waste and bioresource solutions.

• The Water Solutions division focuses on solutions to reduce waste water problems, reuse water and minimise contaminants to be disposed of.
• The Waste Solutions division focuses on solutions for separating waste streams for reuse and recycling.
• The Bioresource Solutions division has solutions for the recovery of residual materials from the food and non-food industry.

In order to stay ahead of the latest developments, Colubris is challenged to constantly develop itself. To set this process in motion, the Colubris Academy was launched this year. This Academy is a physical space at Colubris where the student team meets to work on assignments.

Your assignment

Since the beginning of 2022, the company BlueTec has been acquired by Colubris Cleantech. Bluetec specialises in, among other things, recovering raw materials from wastewater using membrane technology.

For a number of years, Bluetec has been developing a membrane filtration system that can further concentrate wastewater and extract relatively clean water from it for reuse. A pilot was developed a few years ago to achieve this. This membrane filtration system uses various techniques such as forward and reverse osmosis.

So far, the RO section of the pilot has been optimised and a physical model has been constructed that can be used to predict the different flow rates, concentrations and pressures in the system.

We are looking for 2 students that can help us improve this system: mechanical and chemical.

Start date

February 2024.

Our expectation

You are a motivated student in Chemical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering or Applied Physics. While carrying out this assignment, you can work independently and when necessary you are a team player. At Colubris, you will receive an appropriate internship allowance. Furthermore, you will receive good supervision from an experienced content supervisor and a process supervisor during your internship / thesis project. The content supervisor will help you with questions about your assignment. For questions outside of your research you can contact the process supervisor of Innovation Hub Winterswijk.