Group structure - BWT Group

Water
Life source for mankind – business
life source for BWT
„Origin of all things”, is how Thales
described water. The ancient
Romans and Germanics, too,
thought that water had magic
powers. According to today’s
historical knowledge, water was
the most necessary and therefore
important element of the earth’s
historical development. The origin
of life was formed in water three
billion years ago, and without water
there would be no life.
The unique bond between two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen
atom to form H2O is the most interesting
and at the same time most
important molecule in the world.
Two thirds of the earth’s surface are
covered with water, more than half
of the human body consists of
water. Water is life source and production
means, energy source and
adventure world. Water is a unique
medium which is entering human
awareness more and more due to
its limited availability and is therefore
becoming more and more precious.
Water is the only molecule
which occurs naturally in all three
energy states – solid, liquid and
gaseous. During the 18th century,
the Swede Anders Celsius had the
ingenious idea of establishing a
temperature scale which defined
zero as the point at which water
transforms from its liquid to its
solid state and 100 degrees at the
point at which water changes into
the gaseous phase. Water is something
unique in many respects.
Water is distributed over the entire
surface of the earth. Its physical
and chemical properties render it a
universal means for transport and
for making solutions, which is integrated
everywhere into every one
of nature’s cycles, both in the
microscopic and the macroscopic
sense. Without water, there would
be no nitrogen cycle and no phosphorus
cycle – both are essential
elements of the biosphere - as the
ions involved could not be transported.
Water is capable of dissolving
salts and thus making them
available to plants. The plants use
these ions as nourishment and
return the unused water back to
the atmosphere. This small water
cycle is as important as the large
one – without it, and therefore
without water, there would be no
life.
However, water not only dissolves
vital substances, but also dangerous
ones such as heavy metals,
pesticides, fertilisers etc., and integrates
them into the water cycle.
In order to remove these damaging
substances, water treatment is a
necessary technique for the preservation
of life, health and quality
of life.
Apart from its good dissolving properties,
water has other unique
properties, such as its density (the
weight per cubic metre). Many
substances expand when they are
warmed, reduce their density and
in the reverse case, when cooled,
increase in density. If a liquid cools,
the coolest portion sinks to the
bottom, and the freezing process
begins. Our life source water behaves
in the opposite way, as
demonstrated by floating icebergs.
If water is cooled from 10° C to
4° C its maximum density of
0.999973 kg/l is achieved.
– 15 –
On further cooling, water begins to
expand again. Ice only weighs
0.91 kg/l and this is the reason why
icebergs float. It is also the explanation
why frozen water bottles
explode and how fish can survive in
water that is frozen over. They live
near the bottom of the sea where
the water is heaviest, because
there, the temperature is maintained
at about 4° C.
As more than two thirds of the surface
of the earth consist of the unique
liquid water, one might think
that this is enough for everyone.
But on closer inspection it becomes
clear that only 0.6% of this
huge water mass is available without
treatment to be used as drinking
water. The knowledge of this
limited availability and the rapid
increase in the world population –
during October, the six billionth
human was born – are substantially
responsible for the increasing
awareness of the value of water.
Soon, water will replace oil as a
source of energy and in terms of
importance. For BWT, water is not
only a phantastic task and challenge,
but also life source and nectar
for commerce.