Abstract

Flocculation and flotation are used as pretreatment steps prior to the reverse osmosis (RO) process. During seawater treatment, high temperature can change the water chemistry of seawater during the process of coagulation. It also affects bubble volume concentration (BVC) and bubble characteristics. Coagulants such as alum and ferric salts at <TEX>$40^{\circ}C$</TEX> can also change flux rates in the seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) process. In this study, the bubble characteristics in dissolved air flotation (DAF), used as a SWRO pretreatment process, were studied in synthetic seawater at <TEX>$20^{\circ}C$</TEX> and <TEX>$40^{\circ}C$</TEX>. The flux of an RO membrane was monitored after dosing the synthetic seawater with coagulants at different temperatures. Results showed that BVC increases as the operating pressure increases and as the salt concentration decreases. The bubble size released at <TEX>$40^{\circ}C$</TEX> is far smaller than that at <TEX>$20^{\circ}C$</TEX>The addition of a ferric salt is effective for turbidity removal in synthetic seawater at <TEX>$20^{\circ}C$</TEX>; it is more effective than alum. When synthetic seawater was dosed with a ferric salt, the RO membrane flux increased by 27 % at <TEX>$40^{\circ}C$</TEX>.

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