The pumps at the Nova Piqueri Sewage Pumping Station on the Tietê River in São Paulo, Brazil went online in June 2020. PENETRON ARC, an innovative new acid-activated protective coating that effectively protects concrete structures exposed to highly acidic environments, was successfully applied at the new facility.
The Tietê River rises in the Serra do Mar just east of the city of São Paulo and flows northwest for 700 miles (1,130 km) before ending in the Paraná River. Considered one of the most important economic conduits in the state of São Paulo, it is also known as the most polluted. Sabesp, a Brazilian water and waste management company owned by the state of São Paulo, was mandated in the 1990s to clean up the Tietê River.
Slowly Restoring A River
“After more than 20 years, the Tietê River clean-up still has a long way to go, but progress has been made,” notes Cláudio Neves Ourives, Executive Director of Penetron Brasil. “An important part of restoring a healthy river has been the ongoing expansion of sewage treatment capacity across the state. The recent completion of the Nova Piqueri sewage pumping station is part of that process.”
The Barueri wastewater treatment plant, the biggest such facility in Brazil, treats sewage from the city of São Paulo. The Nova Piqueri sewage pumping station, an automated station where sewage passes through a waste crusher and is pumped to a higher elevation to flow to the sewage treatment plant, is part of the Barueri plant upgrade. During the planning phase of the pumping station project, Telar Engenharia e Comércio S.A. (Telar), the project’s general contractor, looked for a way to protect the new concrete structures from the highly aggressive environment found in the aerobic conditions of a sewage treatment plant.