Two seawater reverse osmosis plants operating at high pressure and 50% conversion
✍ Scribed by Harvey Winters
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1987
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 295 KB
- Volume
- 65
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0011-9164
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✦ Synopsis
At the Second World Congress on Desalination and Water Re-Use (Bermuda) an evaluation was made on a Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant operating at high pressures (1100-1500 psig) using Middle East conditions; it was concluded that such an RO plant could obtain 50 percent conversion of the feedwater and incur lower capital and operating costs.
Two RO seawater plants using DuPont B-1OT hollow fiber permeators were studied; these plants, one a 400m3/day facility and the other a 115m3/day facility, were designed for 50 % conversion at a maximum 1200 psig operating pressure. The plants used direct one to one brine staging and have operated at 1140 psig since their start-up. These plants have continually exceeded design specifications for both productivity and salt rejection. Both the first and second stage permeators combined have maintained 50% conversion with a TDS of the product water less than 350 ppm. These hollow fiber aramid permeators have maintained excellent performance at high pressure despite the fact that the feedwater possessed a very high concentration of organics (humic acid).
The capital and operating costs of this plant have been significantly less than that of a comparable RO plant using lower pressure (900 psig). The performance data and cost analysis of this high pressure RO plant support the hypothesis that high pressure RO can provide excellent performance at a lower cost.