About Leopold
Leopold has long been a worldwide leader in the water and wastewater treatment industry, providing both filtration and clarification systems. Leopold designs and supplies systems for gravity media filtration, ozone-enhanced biofiltration, denitrification, clarification, sludge collection and backwash water recovery. Leopold solutions are ideal for municipal surface water and wastewater treatment, municipal or industrial water reuse, and desalination pretreatment.
Since its establishment in 1924, Leopold has pioneered and acquired innovative technologies aimed at improving the quality of water while reducing costs. With more than 10,000 installations around the world, Leopold is a trusted partner in water and wastewater treatment.
Process expertise and technological leadership
Leopold engineers are available to help analyze, evaluate and design filtration systems, including evaluating influent water qualities, determining optimal loading rates and best design configuration, selecting the best media characteristics, and designing the backwash process. Xylem’s Leopold FilterWorx® performance filter system comes complete with flume, underdrains, integral media support, engineered media, backwash water troughs, and system controls. The result is a cost-effective, efficient, high-performance system designed to meet customer requirements and regulatory limits.
The Leopold elimi-NITE® 2.0 dentrification system applies this gravity media filtration expertise to remove nitrate and suspended solids in wastewater treatment, while the Leopold Oxelia® system provides oxidation-enhanced biologically active filtration for a multi-barrier defense against pathogens, organic micropollutants, and other contaminants in surface water treatment, wastewater treatment, and water reuse applications.
Leopold’s engineers also address aging infrastructure and growing demand on water utilities with innovation in clarification technology. Xylem’s Leopold Texler™ lamella clarifier combines the proven ability of 55° inclined sheets to significantly increase clarification capacity with simplified maintenance. The Texler lamella clarifier uses lamellas made from durable, hydrophobic geotextile material and provides safe, convenient access for cleaning with slip-resistant trough covers.
To remove sludge solids in final clarifiers, Leopold offers sludge collection solutions with the Clari-VAC® floating sludge collector and the CT2® submerged sludge collector.
Our Heritage
For a century, Leopold has served the water and wastewater treatment industry, continually innovating to improve municipal water quality.
F.B. Leopold established the company in 1924 in Pittsburgh, PA, as a construction company. Within two years, Leopold had developed, patented and installed the first dual parallel lateral underdrain.
In the decades that followed, the company continued to innovate in filter underdrains, and expand its portfolio to address industry needs for sludge collection, clarification, and filter media.
In 1977, Leopold introduced the breakthrough Universal underdrain featuring both air and water backwashing. The new underdrain also marked a shift from concrete and clay tile to HDPE material.
Since then, Leopold has continued to advance underdrain performance. Today our underdrain portfolio is characterized by uniform air and water distribution, superior uplift resistance, and effective media retention, producing cleaner filters, longer filter runs and lower operating costs.