Grove Advanced Chemicals: Let Nature Take Care of Nature. Grove is a company dedicated to the water treatment industry and specializes in the application of organic biodegradable coagulants from vegetal origin.

2. Company
id
Sector and sub-sector
Water, waste water and process water treatment.
Main activities, services and products
Distribution of ecological coagulants from
vegetal origin, that are an alternative solution
to conventional products based in inorganic
coagulants and organic synthetic coagulants,
Opening year
2009 (full activity)
First international year
2010
Workers
13
Grove offices
Main Office: Portugal
2 offices: Spain
1 office: Germany
Grove’s Markets (directly and
indirectly):
Angola
Cameroon
Croatia
Finland
France
Germany
Holland
India
Italy
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Malaysia
Moçambique
Portugal
Russia
Spain
Switzerland
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States America

3. who’s
grove?
why?
Grove® is a company dedicated to the
water treatment industry and specializes in
the application of organic biodegradable
coagulants from vegetal origin. Grove
products, registered under the brand Flox®
are mainy used in the primary physicochemical of waste water treatment, process
water and potable waters by companies from
the food industry, petrochemical&refineries,
wood, pharmaceutical, textile, among
many others.
Flox® is a range of ecological and
biodegradable coagulants that are an
alternative to conventional products, based
in inorganic salts and organic synthetic
compounds. These traditional products not
only are considered dangerous but they can
also be highly corrosive and pollutant. Hence
we must ask the question:
“Why treat
contaminated water
with contaminants
when you have a
natural solution?”
Flox® answers to this question as it is a
biodegradable ecological coagulant, not
considered dangerous and ultimately, it has a
better performance than inorganic coagulants.

4. Flox
Advantages
®
Use of the Flox® natural coagulants has
several main advantages that combine into
an environmentally correct and economically
efficient water treatment and respond to
the general concern about environment and
sustainability:
1
Natural eco-products derived from plants
and renewable sources, contributing to a
sustainable and economical water treatment;
2
Flox® coagulants decrease the volume
of sludge and do not alter the pH of
the water under treatment, comparatively to
conventional products based on metallic salts.
3
Non-toxic and non-corrosive eco-
products, thus con tributing to a longer
useful life of equipment and to the security of
operators; not classified under the UN register
of hazardous products;
4
Application on a large pH range (4 to
9), without alteration of the effluents pH.
Therefore, these products considerably reduce
the use of acidic and alkali agents resulting
in huge savings in these products and their
logistics and increasing the operating security;
5
Contribution to the efficiency of the
posterior biological treatment, due to the
absence of any kind of inhibitor agent (e.g.
organic salts), while contributing with organic
material for the growth of micro fauna;
6
The effluents conductivity remains
unchanged; this is particularly important in
cases followed by osmosis processes, and in
cases of closed circuit waters.

5. Potential
costumers
Due to Flox® nature and the fact it responds
to world-wide hot topics such as sustainability
and environmental concerns, ecological
coagulants such as Flox® are highly attractive
to industries like petrochemical&refineries
among many others. For obvious reasons,
many companies want and like to be
associated to these eco-products.
Flox® not only is a more correct way to
treat water but it also delivers great technical
performance in the following industries:
Petrochemicals & Refineries
Fiberboard
Dairy
Canned Food
Textile
Ceramics
Poultry Abattoir
Domestic Waste waters
Paper&Pulp
Technical Glass
Rainwaters
Among many others
Moreover, Flox®-QT is NSF certified and can
be used to treat water for human consumption.
For this reason Governmental entities should
also be contacted to promote the global use
of safe and green products not only
for potable water treatment but also waste
water treatment.

6. Business
Model
Grove® Advanced ChemicalsTM business model
is clearly sketched by several steps that should
be developed by teams of 2 persons. One
person with technical background and the
other with commercial profile or one that
effectively performs both areas.
The business model can be divided in several
stages as follows:
Market Prospects;
First contact (meeting schedule);
First meeting for Flox presentation and samples
collection;
Laboratory trials – Technical report;
Technical report and commercial proposition sent to
customer;
Follow-up and schedule of industrial trial;
Industrial trial with technical assistance provided;
Technical report of the industrial trial;
Adoption of final solution and technical follow-up;
It is important to keep a close follow up with
the customer as Flox® is a specialty chemical
and requires a close technical assistance.
Even for an experienced user, Flox® can be
hard to manipulate hence the importance in
providing close assistance to the customer.
Distributors
For distributors, Flox is available in 100%
active principle in powder form. Meaning that
logistic operations for product dilution and
packaging needs to be supported by
the distributor. The process is simple and easy
to perform as it is a normal batch
dilution procedure.

7. Necessary
Equipment
Procedure
Reactor with agitation and heating, up to 50ºC;
Flox® powder;
Dechlorinated water.
1º
Half fill the dilution reactor
with dechlorinated water and slowly
add Flox® powder whilst stirring to ensure
complete dissolution;
2º
3º
Complete the total volume or mass of
the solution with the remaining water;
In order to obtain a homogeneous
solution, the stirring process must take
at least 2h, depending on the stirring power of
the reactor, amount of volume being produced
and type of Flox® (Flox®-QTH may require
more agitation time);
4º
When transferring the finished solution,
from the reactor to containers or tank
truck, a filtration with a 2mm mesh is most
recommended.
Be aware of foam development if the
turbulence of liquid transfer is to high.
Obs
This dissolution procedure should be
performed at a temperature of around 40ºC, to
aid the dissolution process. All the equipment
used for the dilution process can be cleaned
with water. This dilution is normally made at a
25% (W/W) concentration.

8. Certifications
QUALITY, ENVIRONMENT
AND HUMAN RESOURCES
Grove® Advanced ChemicalsTM is
certified by the Quality Standard NP EP ISO
9001, Environment Standard NP EN ISO 14001
and Human Resources Standard NP 4427
REACH
Flox® is REACH registered.
NSF
The Flox®-QT coagulant is certified by NSF
International - National Sanitation Foundation,
a worldwide acknowledged certification
agency of products designed for the human
consumption, as food and water. The
certification process which shall allow the
use of these eco products in drinking water
treatment within the EU is, at present,
in progress.
FSC
All Flox® products are produced under
a sustainable management of the forest
resources certified by FSC - Forest
Stewardship Council and by the producer
accredited in accordance to ISO 9001 and
ISO 12001.

9. Case
Study
PETROLEUM
REFINERY
challenge opportunity
An oil refinery plant used over 180 tons/year
of metallic inorganic coagulant to reduce COD
and Oils & Greases in the WWTP. The results
were satisfactory, but with some negative
interference with the secondary biological
treatment due to the pH and metal residues
derived from the use of inorganic coagulant.
wastewater characteristics
Flow
1 200 m3/hour
Average COD
480 mg/L
Oils & Greases
185 mg/L
cost analysis
Total operation cost reduction:
16% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)
Effluent After Treatment
Treatment
COD
Oils & Greases
PAC 18%
230 mg/L
58 mg/L
Flox -QT
190 mg/L
17 mg/L
®
treatment comparison
Before
Flox®-QT was tested in order to improve
the removal of COD and Oils & Greases,
reduce treatment costs, replace the inorganic
coagulant by an organic coagulant favorable
to the environment and eliminate the use of
hazardous products. Given the good results
obtained on laboratory and industrial scale,
Flox®-QT was approved for permanent
use the WWTP.
Present
PAC 18%
Flox®-QT
15 ppm
5 ppm
Treatment
COD
Oils & Greases
PAC 18%
52 %
69 %
Flox -QT
60 %
91 %
Coagulant/ Flocculant
Concentration
REMOVAL PERCENTAGE
®
benefits of the application
of Flox®-QT
Reduced amount of coagulant in 70%;
Rationalization of manpower;
Production of smaller sludge volume and better
quality sludge;
Improved health and operational safety of the
operators through the use of a product not
classified as dangerous on the UN list;

10. Case
Study
Canned
food
challenge opportunity
A canned food company producing 62,000 m3/
month effluent used polyaluminum chloride
18% as coagulant and anionic polymer as
an auxiliary of flocculation. The treatment
presented difficulties due to changes in pH
caused by the performance of CIP procedures
(Clean In Place).
wastewater characteristics
Flow
62 000 m3/month
COD
7 000 mgO2/L
pH
6.0 - 8.5
cost analysis
Total operation cost reduction:
22% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)
Effluent After Treatment
Treatment
PAC
FLOX®-QT / QTH
COD
Sludge volume
1 100 mgO2/L
300 ton/month
930 mgO2/L
210 ton/month
treatment comparison
Before
Flox®-QT was tested in the laboratory with the
aim of improving the quality of treated effluent,
and decreasing the volume and improving
the quality of the sludge. Good results were
obtained leading to successful industrial-scale
implementation of Flox®-QT and approval
for permanent use. During the weekly periods
of CIP procedures that major changes in pH
(friday to sunday), Flox®-QT is replaced by
Flox®-QTH with excellent results.
Since the consumption of anionic polymer
emulsion was extremely high, a dry polymer
preparer was installed reducing the cost of this
reagent in approximately 70%.
Coagulant/ Flocculant
Dosage
Polymer
Alkalinizing agent
Present
PAC
FLOX®-QT / QTH
180 ppm
80 ppm
Emulsion
Powder
Caustic soda
-
benefits of the application
of Flox®-qt / qtH
Reduction of sludge volume in 30%;
Reduced consumption of cationic polymer;
Elimination of caustic as alkalinizing agent;
Improved drying of sludge;
Increase COD removal in 15%;
Reduced impact of pH changes in the effluent
caused by CIP procedures;
Reduced consumption and handling of
aggressive chemicals;
Improved health and operational safety of the
operators through the use of a product is not
classified as dangerous on the UN list;

11. Case
Study
poultry
abbattoir
challenge opportunity
A poultry abattoir unit generates approximately
9 600 m3/month of effluent from the slaughter
process. This effluent is characterized by
having high COD levels, mainly due to the
presence of blood, as well as Oils & Greases.
The wastewater treatment was carried out
using aluminum polychloride 18%, a cationic
flocculant and sodium hydroxide
(pH adjustment).
Flox®-QT was tested in the laboratory and
subsequently at the industrial scale to improve
the quality of the treated water, eliminate the
use of sodium hydroxide as alkalizing agent,
and to improve the quality and to reduce the
volume of sludge.
wastewater characteristics
Flow
9 600 m3/month
COD
3 850 mgO2/L
pH
6.3 - 6.5
cost analysis
Total operation cost reduction:
30% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)
Effluent After Treatment
Treatment
COD
pH
PAC 18%
710 mgO2/L
5.3
FLOX -QT
660 mgO2/L
6.3 - 6.5
Before
Present
PAC 18%
FLOX®-QT
Dosage
200 ppm
80 ppm
Polymer
12 ppm
6 ppm
Alkalinizing agent
NaOH
-
®
treatment comparison
Coagulant/Flocculant
benefits of the application
of Flox®-qt
Elimination of the use of sodium hydroxide as
alkalizing agent;
Reduction of sludge volume by 45%;
Production of sludge without restriction for
agricultural use;
Reduced consumption and handling of
aggressive chemicals;
Improved health and operational safety of the
operators through the use of a product not
classified as dangerous on the UN list;

12. Contacts
Grove® Advanced ChemicalsTM
(Portugal) S.A.
Rua Barão S. Januário . 33, 5º, sala 53 54
4470-473 Maia . PORTUGAL
phone +351 220 126 750
fax
+351 220 126 759
mail info@grovechemicals.com
Grove® Advanced ChemicalsTM
(España) S.L.
C/ de Génova 25 1°
28004 Madrid . ESPAÑA
Passeig dels Til.lers n°3
08034 Barcelona . ESPAÑA
phone +34 911 230 456
fax
+34 915 219 684
mail info@grovechemicals.com
Grove® Advanced ChemicalsTM
(Deutschland) GmbH
Saarlandestraße 23
44139 Dortmund . DEUTSCHLAND
phone +49(0)231-8868 008
fax
+49(0)231-77666 160
mail info@grovechemicals.com

13. www.grovechemicals.com