This paper describes how Acciona Water designed and constructed these horizontal drains; what difficulties the team had to face during the implementation and how the facility is performing during the two years operation with this intake type that we believe may be valid and applicable for numerous large scale seawater desalination plants, specially...

The Affordable Desalination Collaboration (ADC) is working to make seawater desalination using reverse osmosis (SWRO) more energy efficient and more cost effective. One objective of the ADC is to provide a platform by which cutting edge technologies can be tested and measured for their ability to reduce the overall cost of the SWRO treatment proce...

This PowerPoint presents some basics on Pump Operations and Maintenance as well as a section on predictive maintenance and key formulas....

This paper details how a highly efficient membrane/biological process, IMAS (Integrated Membrane Activated Sludge), has been developed to dramatically reduce membrane fouling rates without additional energy input or an increase in the amount of membrane area. Both energy usage and membrane area are significantly reduced compared to a conventional M...

This PowerPoint presentation discusses membrane fouling and cleaning methods with some discussion about pretreatment options....

Ceramic membranes were first installed 15 years ago on full scale systems because of their mechanical and chemical stability. More favorable economics of organic membranes led to their widespread application in hundreds of installations world-wide. However, challenges concerning fiber breakage of organic membranes and the control of irreversible ...

For some utilities, disposal of the waste streams generated by membrane filtration and MF/UF membrane systems that do not have available options for disposal is becoming a challenge. This paper discusses the various treatment and disposal alternatives for CIP waste streams from MF/UF utilities. Typical waste streams from MF/UF utilities include spe...

Water District No. 1 of Johnson County, Kansas (WaterOne) is a large utility that supplies water to approximately 340,000 people in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Currently, WaterOne is planning a new 30 mgd treatment facility that will treat Missouri River water withdrawn through horizontal collector wells. One proposed treatment process wou...

Using the largest water recycling project in the Southern Hemisphere, Australia's Western Corridor Recycled Water Project (WCRWP), as an example, the paper discusses state-of-the-art water reclamation with membranes (MF/UF and 2-pass RO). Combining a triple-membrane approach with other processes, at build-out WCRWP will include a combined capacity...

This paper describes practical Hands-on lessons from commissioning the 70-MGD Columbia Heights Membrane Filtration Plant...

Introducing a new water source into an existing distribution system can cause a variety of water quality issues, especially in older distribution systems. The new characteristics can loosen sediments, slough iron or manganese deposits, change water biology, and result in additional changes that effect the taste, odor, or appearance of the distribut...

The paper and presentation will describe the MBR process at the JCEC and it's impact on the surrounding community and environment. In 2002-2003, the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District Act was adopted to curtail anticipated water shortages, which could ultimately inhibit economic growth. This act required water reuse system develop...

This paper will present advantages and disadvantages between the pressure and submerged membrane systems, challenges of incorporating two different systems in one facility at the Town of Erie, present results between the two systems based on evaluations of both pressure membrane plant operation and submerged membrane plant operation....

This paper describes Membrane Integrity Testing parameters from pilot to full scale for three different membrane manufacturers. Three municipalities in Colorado, City of Thornton, Town of Erie and City of Westminster have integrated advanced membrane processes at their facilities, each by a different membrane manufacturer...

This presentation will highlight the impacts of energy consumption on the cost of desalted water along with the impacts of regulatory and permitting processes....

This paper will site and discuss how energy plays an important role in the cost of seawater reverse osmosis. A review of new and existing SWRO system designs will identify important process elements that can affect a facility's energy consumption....

This presentation reviews how utilities evaluate alternative sources of supply to meet their potable water needs including desalination and membrane softening. General industry trends and project challenges specific to inland desalination applications in the western United States is reviewed....

The Affordable Desalination Collaboration (ADC) is a California non-profit organization composed of a group of leading companies and agencies in the desalination industry. Using a combination of energy efficient, commercially available RO technologies including pumps, membranes and energy recovery equipment, the ADC has demonstrated (in a two-phas...

The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) has placed increased emphasis on the development of alternative water supplies for South Florida due to concerns of increased withdrawals on the sustainability of the Biscayne Aquifer. As a result, an application for a consumptive use permit renewal must now include provisions for the development ...

The City of Marco Island operated a wastewater treatment facility comprised of three parallel treatment units. The existing wastewater treatment facility is bound by various commercial and utilities sites with little available land for new structures. A real estate boom and extensive sewering program resulted in an increased demand for utilities s...

This PowerPoint presentation describes what is the Southern California Water Recycling Projects Initiative and explores possibilities for concentrate disposal and water reuse options....

The focus of the technical paper and presentation will be the performance of the pretreatment systems, primarily in terms of turbidity and SDI performance indicators, and relative ability and robustness of the pretreatment systems to accommodate variations in seawater quality. Operational and analytical data will be presented of pretreatment system...

Rejection capabilities of Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes to Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), physical and aggregate and conventional contaminants (i.e., total nitrogen, total organic carbon) have been well demonstrated through pilot and full-scale RO operations. The information regarding rejection capabilities of RO to non-regulated compounds such as ...

Pretreatment for sand removal upstream of Reverse Osmosis (RO) membrane systems is a major inland brackish water challenge. Many RO water treatment plants (WTP's) need to efficiently remove sand produced by wells that can otherwise plug the membrane system, severely reduce membrane productivity and possibly cause permanent membrane system damage. ...

In 2003, the City of Goodyear, Arizona experienced a shortage of potable water and implemented the use of emergency RO systems to produce additional potable water from a converted agricultural well source. Standardized skid mounted RO trains were purchased with partial pretreatment capabilities including cartridge filters and threshold inhibitor in...

The Carlsbad, CA seawater desalination demonstration pilot facility started up in late 2002 and began continuous, 24 hr / 7 day per week operation in early 2003. The facility is fed water from the Agua Hedionda lagoon after having been through the power plant cooling system. The lagoon is under the influence of surface water runoff from Agua Hedi...

Innovative technologies convert wastewater into reusable water to mitigate the toll of heavy industrial facilities on the environment. Over the last decade, membrane bioreactors (MBRs) have emerged as a viable alternative to meet this growing demand. This paper compares the design practice and use of these two membrane technologies within a wastew...

The El Paso / Fort Bliss Desalination Facility is reviewed from concept through construction and includes information on concentrate disposal using deep well injection. It includes Desalination capital costs associated with the project, financing sources and annual operating costs. It also includes a comparison of costs per thousand gallons prod...

Recovery of the brine hydraulic energy promises operating cost savings in reverse osmosis (RO) systems. For seawater (SW) RO systems, this promise has turned into reality with a plethora of commercialized energy recovery devices (ERDs). Brackish water (BW) RO however, is not nearly so amenable for ERD application due to a relatively small amount of...

This paper presents a listing of membrane facilities in Texas, using the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) data bases along with research investigations of facilities not listed. A unique insight is offered into how membrane technology is rapidly developing in Texas and what is influencing fac...

This paper presents recent pilot test results at four different locations showing substantial improvements on settled and coagulated water sources while providing permeate quality that meets current and proposed regulatory guidelines. Pilot studies described were performed with Zenon Membrane Solutions ZeeWeed 1000 product....

This PowerPoint presentation discusses the selective salt recovery process and concentrate management for Southwest USA inland membrane facilities....

A recent long-range water-planning study concluded that Dallas Water Utilities will need to reuse 120 mgd of treated wastewater effluent in the near future. It is envisioned that 60 mgd of this requirement will come from the Southside Wastewater Treatment Plant (Southside). The Phase IV Expansion provides a timely opportunity to produce effluent su...

This paper focuses on the operating strategies, procedures and activities associated with major process changes by integrating submerged membrane technology into a conventional water treatment plant. The City of Kennewick's Water Filtration Plant (?WFP?) treats the water from the Columbia River....

The Swansea Water District (SWD) provides drinking water for the residents of Swansea, Massachusetts and some neighbor communities. As such, the District is constructing a new 1.4 mgd desalination facility to treat the tidally-influenced Palmer River via an MF/RO integrated membrane system. In addition to the MF/RO desalination facility, a 1.0 mg...

This paper will present actual full scale plant operating data, which will include TOC removals and finished water turbidity, that validates the pilot testing and demonstrates that direct coagulant addition for low pressure membranes WORKS. The City of Pflugerville, Texas has built a major project to utilize a new water supply to meet the growing n...

Biofuels and particularly ethanol, have received a dramatic increase in attention as an alternative fuel source as crude oil prices continue to rise. Ethanol may be produced from a number of feedstocks including sugar cane and corn. This paper explores the application of RO processes in producing process water for ethanol refineries in the US. T...

Immersed membrane bioreactors (MBRs) mark a new generation of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) that uses membranes submerged in biological reactors for solids separation. MBRs provide exceptional treatment of wastewater and offer resilient operation under varying flows and loading. While they operate similarly to conventional activated sludge pla...

There are several methods for reducing RO energy consumption in seawater membrane desalination (SWRO). They include advanced version of the Pelton Wheel, work and pressure exchangers and the hydraulic turbocharger. While these technologies are now being globally employed, the end-user and contracting and specification engineers are finding it diffi...

The Chino Basin Desalter Authority (CDA) operates the Chino I Desalter (14.2 MGD) and the Chino II Desalter (10 MGD). The two plants remove TDS and nitrates using reverse osmosis (RO) and ion exchange technology. This paper outlines the operations of these two plants and provides a summary of the status of the Chino III Desalter....

The City of Goodyear is using RO to reduce the TDS level in the well source water to achieve potable water with TDS < 750 mg/L. The concentrate is currently being discharged into the wastewater treatment plant. As the City grows there is concern that the brine will adversely impact the wastewater treatment plant. This paper summarizes the techni...

One of the major disadvantages of membrane filtration for the production of drinking water is the occurrence of membrane fouling which leads to operational problems and to a deterioration of the treated water quality. One of the causes of membrane fouling is the presence of natural organic matter (NOM) in sources for drinking water. The aim of this...

This PowerPoint presentation describes high recovery methods in reverse osmosis systems and zero liquid discharge possibilities....

This Paper describes the challenges associated with disposal of concentrate are widely recognized and in many situations represent a major factor in determining the feasibility of desalination projects. These challenges are dependent on the size of the facility. Specific challenges, issues, and solutions associated with small system concentrate dis...

The Alameda County Water District evaluated their scale control program with respect to performance and total cost of operation. Following extensive piloting testing for scale control performance and detailed cost evaluation based on the cost per 1000 gallons of water produced, a decision was made to use a highly concentrated chemical antiscalant a...

This paper will give a general view of water's problematic, wind energy potentiality, future membrane projects and especially wind desalination prospects in Morocco....

Norit produces or reactivates carbon in a multitude of factories and the production plant in Glasgow, Scotland, wished to improve their environmental performance. Through the introduction of an innovative wastewater treatment system in combination with an internal effluent reuse, the amount of wastewater and the pollutant load have been reduced. A...

The United States Office of Naval Research and Ocean Pacific Technologies (OPT) are working to develop and test new energy recovery and pumping technologies aimed at improving the efficiency of smaller and medium sized SWRO systems. OPT has developed a new hybrid design termed an axial piston-pressure exchanger (AP-PX) pump. The AP-PX is a combinat...

The disposal of concentrate from RO systems presents challenges and typical methods include deep well injection, surface discharge, or sanitary sewer. The volume of water generated or the high salinity impinge on the economic viability of these methods. One accepted method of reducing the volume discharged is to apply additional membrane treatment ...

North America's largest seawater desalination plant was to have started continuous operation in 2003 on the West Coast of Florida. The project began as a privately owned Design-Build-Own-Operate and Transfer (DBOOT) type of project. This paper will describe the project challenges faced, how Tampa Bay Water managed key project risk issues to make ...

In September 2005 California American Water Company (CAW) decided to proceed with a pilot seawater desalination program at Moss Landing near Monterey, California. The objectives of the pilot program are to develop essential design data and to test different technologies and design approaches to facilitate the design of a full-scale desalination pla...

Tampa Bay Water owns a 25 MGD Seawater Desalination Facility on the West Coast of Florida to treat seawater from the Gulf and sale the water to the six governments (3 cities and 3 counties). In the past, performance of the seawater facility has not met the goals set by Tampa Bay Water. In order to improve performance, Tampa Bay Water went through ...

Taste and odor problems are a key factor determining water quality in the eyes of the consumer. Two compounds typically related to taste and odor issues are MIB (2-methyilsoborneol) C11H20O and Geosmin C12H22O. These compounds come from Blue - Green Algae and Cyanobacteria generating an earthy musty smell that can be detected in concentrations as l...

The Town of Jupiter, Florida, is constructing a 17.0 MGD Nanofiltration (NF) plant at its Central Boulevard complex. The Town already operates at this site a 13.7 MGD brackish groundwater RO plant, and a 13.5 MGD lime softening plant, together with a 1.8 MGD ion exchange system, which removes organics from a shallow groundwater side stream for redu...

This PowerPoint presentation explores microfiltration, ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis membrane technology troubleshooting including preventative maintenance and corrective efforts....

Management of our global water resources is vital to creating sustainable water supplies for potable, agricultural, recreational and industrial use. Reuse is an economic and environmentally sound solution that uses less energy and actually reduces overall waste compared to desalination. Integrating low-pressure membranes with reverse osmosis to tre...

This PowerPoint presentation describes the basics of ultrafiltration and microfiltration membrane technology and applications of those technologies....

This PowerPoint presentation describes the basics of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration membrane technology and the applications of those technologies...

The final permeate of a Reverse Osmosis ( RO ) membrane system is a complex blend of water produced at multiple sites in the overall equipment array. The finished quality is not only dependant on the expected performance of the membrane elements within the pressure vessels but also on ensuring secure connections between elements and end caps. RO...

This brief PowerPoint presentation describes reverse osmosis membrane plant profiling techniques and results....

In Las Vegas Valley, water and wastewater are intrinsically related because treated wastewater effluent is returned back to Lake Mead, the drinking water source for the Valley's residents. An alternative source of water to Las Vegas Valley could be realized by using membrane technology, specifically reverse osmosis. To evaluate the effects of rev...

This PowerPoint presentation will summarize 2007 Army doctrine and thought concerning the quality and potential uses of various ROWPU equipment and water streams available in the battlefield, including fresh, RO bypass (pretreated only), ROWPU product water, and ROWPU brine (reject) water produced by the various Army ROWPU systems in use in Iraq. I...

For desalination of surface waters, this study evaluates slowsand (SS) filtration as pretreatment to reverse osmosis (RO). In 2000, Reclamation's Phoenix Area Office in the appraisal study Alternatives for Using Central Arizona Project Water in the Northwest Tucson Area estimated the costs of three water treatment filtration processes: SS filtrati...

Forward osmosis (FO) offers the opportunity to engineer new applications based on the ubiquitous osmotic process utilized by every living organism. FO applications include small-scale individual water purification units (Instant Water), large-scale water desalination systems (Forward Osmosis Water Purification Units (FOWPUs)), and production of ele...

This presentation gives a very brief overview of the specifications and capabilities of the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico....

The transport properties of cellulose acetate membranes have limitations due to polymer impurities that may restrict flow and/or act as sites for salt leakage. Under the conditions found in this study, a novel technique was developed to obtain an image of these impurities. These impurities can be determined semi-quantitatively per unit area, and co...

Polyamide membranes are subject to deterioration by the chlorine added to the feed water. A more robust membrane would theoretically tolerate higher concentrations of chlorine without chemical damage. The current polyamide thin film membrane is made by an interfacial reaction between the reactant pair trimesoyl chloride (TMC) and mphenylenediamine ...

Reverse osmosis (RO) pretreatment is a key parameter in designing effective desalination plants. A pretreatment design depends on a variety of parameters including: water quality, dissolved organic carbon, SDI, Turbidity, algae concentration, temperature and seasonal changes. Treatment technologies can include conventional methods including: ba...

This PowerPoint presentation presents and overview of SCADA process instrumentation control systems....

This presentation discusses the details of two systems in Maryland, USA which use RO/NF membrane technologies to remove Radio-nuclides from drinking water. Plant 1 is a two stage, Nanofiltration, 600 gpm system removing Radium 226 and Radium 228. Plant 2 is a two stage, low pressure RO, 60 gpm system, removing Polonium Operational data, system co...

As membrane technologies mature, new innovations are being introduced. Although most of these changes are incremental, they continue to improve reliability, reduce cost, and mitigate environmental impacts. This presentation reviews the global desal capacity, seawater desalination costs, and the characteristics of some of the worlds largest desalin...

This paper will focus on the reasons why membrane use is growing, and will describe how membranes, coupled with UV oxidation, can be used to meet current Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulations as well as potential future regulations....

Forward osmosis (FO) is an emerging membrane-based technology which has the potential to reduce the costs and environmental impacts of desalination and water treatment. Although the understanding of RO principles and interest in its use precede current investigations by several decades, recent developments have greatly improved the prospects that ...