Sector and Sub-SectorWater, 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 year2009 (full activity)

FirSt international year2010

WorkerS13

grove oFFiceSMain Office: Portugal2 offices: Spain1 office: Germany

grove’S MarketS (directly and indirectly):

AngolaCameroonCroatiaFinlandFranceGermanyHollandIndiaItalyKingdom of Saudi ArabiaMalaysiaMoçambiquePortugalRussiaSpainSwitzerlandUnited Arab EmiratesUnited KingdomUnited States America

Companyid

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 physico-chemical 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.

Who’sgrove?

Why?

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.

Flox® advantages

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 & RefineriesFiberboardDairyCanned FoodTextileCeramicsPoultry AbattoirDomestic Waste watersPaper&PulpTechnical GlassRainwatersAmong 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 onlyfor potable water treatment but also waste water treatment.

potential Costumers

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.

Businessmodel

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.

distriButors

Reactor with agitation and heating, up to 50ºC;FlOx® powder;Dechlorinated water.

neCessaryequipment

1º Half fill the dilution reactor with dechlorinated water and slowly

add FlOx® powder whilst stirring to ensure complete dissolution;

2º Complete the total volume or mass of the solution with the remaining water;

3º 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.

obSThis 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.

proCedure

Quality, environMentand HuMan reSourceSGrove® Advanced ChemicalsTM is certified by the Quality Standard NP EP ISO 9001, Environment Standard NP EN ISO 14001 and Human Resources Standard NP 4427

reacHFlOx® is REACH registered.

nSFThe 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.

FScAll 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.

CertiFiCations

Casestudy

petroleumreFinery

cHallenge opportunityAn 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.

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 permanentuse the WWTP.

WaSteWater cHaracteriSticSFlow1 200 m3/hour

Average COD480 mg/l

Oils & Greases185 mg/l

coSt analySiSTotal operation cost reduction:16% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)

eFFluent aFter treatMentTREATMENT COD OIlS & GREASES

PAC 18% 230 mg/l 58 mg/l

FlOx®-QT 190 mg/l 17 mg/l

treatMent coMpariSonBEFORE PRESENT

Coagulant/ Flocculant PAC 18% FlOx®-QT

Concentration 15 ppm 5 ppm

reMoval percentageTREATMENT COD OIlS & GREASES

PAC 18% 52 % 69 %

FlOx®-QT 60 % 91 %

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;

cHallenge opportunityA 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).

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%.

WaSteWater cHaracteriSticSFlow62 000 m3/month

COD7 000 mgO2/l

pH6.0 - 8.5

coSt analySiSTotal operation cost reduction: 22% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)

eFFluent aFter treatMentTREATMENT COD SlUDGE vOlUME

PAC 1 100 mgO2/l 300 ton/month

FlOx®-QT / QTH 930 mgO2/l 210 ton/month

treatMent coMpariSonBEFORE PRESENT

Coagulant/ Flocculant PAC FlOx®-QT / QTH

Dosage 180 ppm 80 ppm

Polymer Emulsion Powder

Alkalinizing agent 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;

Casestudy

CannedFood

cHallenge opportunityA 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 cHaracteriSticSFlow9 600 m3/month

COD3 850 mgO2/l

pH6.3 - 6.5

coSt analySiSTotal operation cost reduction: 30% (€/m3 treated effluent + sludge)

eFFluent aFter treatMentTREATMENT COD PH

PAC 18% 710 mgO2/l 5.3

FlOx®-QT 660 mgO2/l 6.3 - 6.5

treatMent coMpariSonBEFORE PRESENT

Coagulant/Flocculant PAC 18% FlOx®-QT

Dosage 200 ppm 80 ppm

Polymer 12 ppm 6 ppm

Alkalinizing agent NaOH -

beneFitS oF tHe application oF Flox®-QtElimination 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;

Casestudy

poultryaBBattoir

grove® advanced cHeMicalStM

(portugal) S.a.

Rua Barão S. Januário . 33, 5º, sala 53 544470-473 Maia . PORTUGAl

phone +351 220 126 750fax +351 220 126 759mail info@grovechemicals.com

grove® advanced cHeMicalStM

(eSpaña) S.l.

C/ de Génova 25 1°28004 Madrid . ESPAÑA

Passeig dels Til.lers n°308034 Barcelona . ESPAÑA

phone +34 911 230 456fax +34 915 219 684mail info@grovechemicals.com

grove® advanced cHeMicalStM

(deutScHland) gMbH

Saarlandestraße 2344139 Dortmund . DEUTSCHlAND

phone +49(0)231-8868 008fax +49(0)231-77666 160 mail info@grovechemicals.com

ContaCts

www.grovechemicals.com