A new, energy-efficient approach for boron removal from SWRO plants

Ion-exchange membrane electrodialytic salt production using brine discharged from a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant

Seawater intake and pre-treatment/brine discharge — environmental issues

A novel approach for SWRO desalination plants operation, comprising single pass boron removal and reuse of CO2 in the post treatment step

Preliminary experimental analysis of a small-scale prototype SWRO desalination plant, designed for continuous adjustment of its energy consumption to the widely varying power generated by a stand-alone wind turbine

Fouling control in SWRO desalination during harmful algal blooms: A historical review and future developments

Artificial neural network model for optimizing operation of a seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant

ANN based-model for estimating the boron permeability coefficient as boric acid in SWRO desalination plants using ensemble-based machine learning

Objectives The production cost of reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination plant is determined by the CAPEX (Capital expenditure) and OPEX (Operating expenditure). In detail, CAPEX and OPEX are composed of direct cost, overhead cost, electricity cost, and other O&M costs. However, CAPEX and OPEX may vary by country and region. Therefore, this study tries to estimate the production cost by calculating the construction and maintenance costs depending on production capacities based on the operation results such as TDS concentration and the energy consumption from a seawater desalination plant in Korea. Methods A two-stage RO based seawater desalination plant with a capacity of 10 MIGD (45,000 m3/d) was used in this study. The plant consists of a 2 MIGD (9,000 m3/d) unit having DABF (Dissolved air bio-ball filter) and UF (Ultrafiltration) as pretreatment processes, and another 8 MIGD (36,000 m3/d) unit having DABF and DMF (Dual media filtration) as pretreatment processes. To estimate the production cost, construction and maintenance costs were calculated by using GWI's Desaldata cost estimator. CAPEX (Capital expenditure) was calculated based on production capacity, recovery rate, TDS concentration and temperature of seawater, while OPEX (Operating expenditure) was calculated based on production capacity, country, energy consumption, and electricity unit price. Results and Discussion The energy consumptions from EMS (Energy Management System) were 5.48 kWh/m3 at SLC (9,000 m3/d) and 3.4 kWh/m3 at MLC (45,000 m3/d), respectively. In the CAPEX, MLC was reduced by 395,954 ￦/m3 compared to SLC, and the LLC was lower by 192,019 ￦/m3 than MLC. Overall, CAPEX decreased as the production capacity increased. The CAPEX of small plants with production capacity between 10,000 and 50,000 m3/d was significantly different; however, there was no significant difference in larger plants having a capacity above 100,000 m3/d. The OPEX for the annual production capacity showed a sizable difference with 742.3 ￦/m3, 636.5 ￦/m3 and 580.3 ￦/m3 for SLC, MLC, and LLC, respectively. The electricity cost was a substantial portion of OPEX. Also, the production costs based on the interest rates (3% and 5%) were 1,326-1,384 ￦/m3, 1,163-1,209 ￦/m3, and 1,023-1,070 ￦/m3 for SLC, MLC, and LLC, respectively. The results were consistent with 1.0 US$/m3, which is the average production costs presented from other references. Conclusions The production cost estimated using the Desaldata cost estimator based on the CAPEX and OPEX tends to decrease as the capacity increases. However, when the capacity increased over 50,000 m3/d, the production cost decreased by an average of 40 ￦/m3. Thus the decrement of production cost reduced. From these results, the production cost of tap water through seawater desalination was estimated between 1,023 ￦/m3 and 1,070 ￦/m3 above 100,000 m3/d. Therefore, it is difficult to introduce a large-scale desalination plant in Korea, because the average tap water price was 834.6 ￦ in Korea in 2017. However, It is expected that the seawater desalination will be introduced as an alternative water source whenever drinking water price rises, or when the quantity of available drinking water sources reduce due to climate change and water pollution, or whenever energy consumption is reduced as a result of the steady development of the component technologies such as the reverse osmosis membrane, high-pressure pump, and energy recovery device. Key words: Reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant, Water price, Capital expenditure, Operating expenditure, Energy consumption

Fujairah SWRO — management of membrane replacement

Inorganic scaling is a major concern for thermal and reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination plants, which are the key technologies for meeting the increasing freshwater demand. Membrane scaling is a detrimental effect in both thermal and RO process that reduces its performance particularly by reducing the water flux and causing membrane wetting. In this chapter, the formation mechanisms of inorganic scaling in thermal and reverse osmosis plants are discussed. The factors contributing to scale formation such as temperature, pH, and ionic strength of the treated water and the scale indices frequently used to predict the scale formation are explained. Finally, prevention methodologies developed to mitigate inorganic scaling (pre-treatment strategies, cleaning processes, advanced materials, etc.) are enumerated and discussed. Overall, this chapter provides a fundamental perspective of the inorganic scaling in thermal and reverse osmosis seawater desalination plants.

Long term membrane process and performance in Ashkelon Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant

Our aim was to analyze, monitor, and predict the outcomes of processes in a full-scale seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant using multivariate statistical techniques. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to investigate the performance and efficiencies of two SWRO processes, namely, pore controllable fiber filter-reverse osmosis (PCF-SWRO) and sand filtration-ultra filtration-reverse osmosis (SF-UF-SWRO). Principal component analysis (PCA) was applied to monitor the two SWRO processes. PCA monitoring revealed that the SF-UF-SWRO process could be analyzed reliably with a low number of outliers and disturbances. Partial least squares (PLS) analysis was then conducted to predict which of the seven input parameters of feed flow rate, PCF/SF-UF filtrate flow rate, temperature of feed water, turbidity feed, pH, reverse osmosis (RO)flow rate, and pressure had a significant effect on the outcome variables of permeate flow rate and concentration. Root mean squared errors (RMSEs) of the PLS models for permeate flow rates were 31.5 and 28.6 for the PCF-SWRO process and SF-UF-SWRO process, respectively, while RMSEs of permeate concentrations were 350.44 and 289.4, respectively. These results indicate that the SF-UF-SWRO process can be modeled more accurately than the PCF-SWRO process, because the RMSE values of permeate flowrate and concentration obtained using a PLS regression model of the SF-UF-SWRO process were lower than those obtained for the PCF-SWRO process.

Seawater pretreatment by continuous sand filter for seawater RO (reverse osmosis) desalination plant

Energy consumption assessment of 4,000 m3/d SWRO desalination plants

Influence of site-specific parameters on environmental impacts of desalination