Circumstances leading to the first municipal reverse osmosis desalination plant
✍ Scribed by Sidney Loeb
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1984
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 570 KB
- Volume
- 50
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0011-9164
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In June of 1965, a tubular reverse osmosis desalination plant was installed at Coalinga, California . The plant was intended to obtain data characteristic of operation in the field and simultaneously to provide 5000 GPD (gallons per day) (19 m 3 /d) of fresh water to the residents of Coalinga . Thus the unit was both a pilot plant and the first municipal RO desalination plant.
How did this plant come about? The story begins with a visit by Dr . Glenn Havens to the University of California, Los Angeles, (UCLA) Laboratory in 1963 . Havens was a successful manufacturer of fiberglass-reinforced tubular fishing poles . Using the Loeb-Sourirajan casting techniques, applied by us hitherto only to produce flat sheet membranes, he had cast cellulose acetate membranes on the inside of one half inch (13 mm) fiberglass-reinforced tubes, starved of resin sufficiently to make them porous but not enough to lose their capability to withstand the internal brine pressure [1] . From discussions with Havens and a visit to his facilities in San Diego it was clear to us that the performance of his coated tubes was not nearly as good as that of our flat sheets . Nevertheless, we were enthusiastic about the concept and Havens' vigorous prosecution of it .
We obtained $15,000 from State-supported University funds to buy and test a 5000 GPD unit from Havens . This capacity required several hundred tubes and considerable manufacturing time. Therefore we agreed to pay $5000 for a working unit with enough tubes to start evaluation, with the succeeding $5000 payments upon delivery of tubes sufficient for substantial and for full capacity .
In the spring of 1964, it was our opinion that we could accept the working unit and a check for $5000 was sent to Havens . A few days later I telephoned him to say we were coming to San Diego to pick up the unit . He said that there was a problem . He had allied himself with Richfield Petroleum Corporation and they wanted a meeting before delivery .