Posted 5 Dec. 2022 at 02:54 PM
Mascara NT, a specialist in innovative water treatment solutions, saw its orders explode. Created in 2014 at the instigation of Marc Vergnet, the founder of Vergnet pumps and wind turbines, this company located in Gellainville, near Chartres (Eure-et-Loir), has industrialized its reverse osmosis process powered by energy solar power to desalinate seawater, and is part of a very dynamic market which is growing by around 10% per year.
This year, the company, which employs 22 people, will generate a turnover of 5 million euros, against 0.5 million in 2020. Next year, its forecasts are 8 million euros, of which 70 % already on order, and within four years, Mascara plans to multiply its turnover by 4 or 5. “We are at a tipping point. We have never had as many requests as for six months, but we cannot meet all the requests if we want to control our growth”, specifies the president Quentin Ragetly.
Ecological and autonomous solution
Faced with major players such as Veolia or Engie in France and others abroad, Mascara NT is promoting an ecological and autonomous solution thanks to solar energy, which also limits the impact of brine discharge on the marine environment thanks to a dilution of their salt concentration. Assembled in its 2,000 m2 of workshops, its small and medium capacity units (up to 5,000 m3/day) supply both isolated sites (islands, etc.) and larger communities, such as Nouadhibou, in Mauritania, where it is currently building a plant.
The company already processes 2 million m3/day with some sixty installations spread over twenty countries and four continents, for public and private players. Mascara works in particular for industry, the hotel industry, and recently for the agricultural sector, with a partnership announced in Egypt during COP 27, for a brackish water desalination unit coupled to an irrigation network in the Moghra region.
Surface water purification
Its ambition is now to go to higher capacity units, and to apply its technology more widely to all surface water treatment and potabilization issues, in the geographical areas where it is already present.
The needs, linked to climate change and population growth, are immense. According to the OECD, nearly 3.9 billion people could run out of water by 2040. The Middle East currently accounts for half of the desalination capacity installed in the world, but all continents are concerned . Major projects have just been announced in North Africa, Morocco and Algeria, two countries hitherto self-sufficient in water, needs are also increasing in the Indo-Pacific zone, and Europe is not immune to the difficulties.
