A blue pump with a green soul: the new EtaLine Pro

Responsibility does not start with operation – but should be part of production.

According to experts*, the building sector alone currently accounts for about 40 % of total energy consumption in Europe. In order to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, the building sector must be decarbonised by 2050 – a challenge that can only be successfully tackled with the joint efforts of all stakeholders involved. As a leading supplier of pumps for building services applications, KSB shares this responsibility – and in the new EtaLine Pro, the company has created an in-line pump which is fully optimised for sustainability. And this starts in the production process.

How was this achieved? When designing the pump, KSB’s development engineers identified three core challenges:

• Optimising use of materials throughout the entire EtaLine type series
• Taking step to make production as CO₂-neutralised as possible
• Extending the product’s life cycle and maximising the circularity principle

Metal, plastic and lots of brainpower: these are the materials used to manufacture the EtaLine Pro.

The best way of making a raw material environmentally friendly is not to use it in the first place. This fact gave rise to a range of questions as EtaLine’s development got under way: 

1.: How can we minimise the number of sizes while still fully satisfying customer requirements? 

And 2.: How can we then save as much material as possible for each individual pump?

The aim of question 1 was to reduce the number of different variants, achieving streamlined logistics and lessening environmental impact. To this end, real-world customer enquiries about the type series were analysed to extrapolate future market demand. Thanks to EtaLine Pro’s smart tuning options (tune to process), it has been possible to reduce the number of sizes from roughly 40 to around 15.

The answer to question 2 revolutionised the entire concept behind the product. Up until now, pumps, motors and control systems were regarded as distinct modules which could be combined on a case-by-case basis as required. The new EtaLine Pro puts an end to this approach! It has been conceived as a complete and compact system – with a harmonised design, only one display, one name plate, standardised heat management and integrated sensors. And a look inside the pump confirms that a lot of valuable material has also been saved. A comparison of the previous Etaline L 65-65-100 with the new EtaLine Pro 65-65-90 reveals:

• 2.82 kg less copper thanks to innovative motor technology. This corresponds to a 83 % reduction.
• And 3.8 kg less aluminium, which corresponds to a reduction of 52 %.

We were able to reduce our carbon footprint – to “non-existent”!

The second challenge was minimising emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂). Achieving this first required a life cycle assessment to audit all environmental impacts, which could then be reduced as far as possible via a wide range of design modifications. Finally, remaining unavoidable CO₂ emissions are fully compensated. This is achieved by participating in climate projects with certified “additionality” according to the Verra standard. Ultimately, KSB can now be said to have reduced its carbon footprint to zero for the production of the new EtaLine Pro.

Longer service lives make pumps better for the environment.

If replacements are not required, then their production cannot pollute the environment. With this in mind, KSB engineers have done everything they can to extend the life cycle of EtaLine Pro as far as possible. Two factors played a key role here: First of all, the typically high quality of all KSB products already ensures an exceptionally long service life.

But the second factor is much more interesting: Its design allows EtaLine Pro to be used much more flexibly than its predecessors. This means: In the past, changes to a pump’s environment usually necessitated its replacement with a new model corresponding to the new requirements. This is not the case with the new EtaLine Pro, whose extremely broad selection chart allows it to be adapted to new conditions without any loss of efficiency. If operating conditions change so much the pump cannot be reused in a given system, the operator can also keep it on “standby”, as the likelihood of finding suitable use elsewhere has increased.

Ensuring not a single gram of material is wasted.

The material circularity indicator (MCI) maps a material flow’s capacity for circularity on a scale of 0 to 1. The higher the score, the more recyclable or “circular” the product. To obtain an MCI of 1, all raw materials used would have to come from recycled components or recycled materials without the recycling process incurring any losses. In addition, all waste generated during the production and end of life of the product would also have to be reused or recycled without loss (“zero waste”). In short: The higher the index, the more resource-efficient the production. A number of measures to achieve this were taken in the development of EtaLine:

• Increasing the proportion of recyclates: The share of raw materials from recycled sources now exceeds 60 %.
• Intelligent product modularisation: No coupling of long-lived and short-lived components of substantially different weights
• Facilitation of straightforward dismantling: for easy re-use, refurbishment or recycling (e.g. encapsulants are not used for electronic component cooling)
• Extension of the use phase via measures including tune to process and fewer variants
• Reduction of order-specific hardware variants

Thanks to these measures, the new EtaLine Pro achieves a high MCI of 0.65.

Summary

With the new EtaLine Pro, KSB is setting new standards in environmental impact and sustainability. Of course, this also applies to development projects in the near future – KSB has set itself the goal of achieving CO₂ neutrality for all new developments.

EtaLine Pro is now able to serve its entire target market with fewer variants, significantly reduced use of resources, improved efficiency and maximised application flexibility – at absolutely competitive prices!

* https://www.wissenschaft.de/erde-umwelt/co2-emissionen-von-gebaeuden-auf-neuem-hoechststand/