Veolia Experience in Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant

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: ballasted sedimentation, air flotation, dual media filtration, mono media filtration, and double stage filtration or advanced technologies including: membranes coupled with a conventional process. This paper describes a comprehensive approach to characterize raw seawater samples as well as the performance of seawater pretreatment processes. The developed analytical tools allow a thorough characterization of seawater samples from many aspects: (i) inorganic characterization, (ii) characterization of the natural organic matter through size exclusion chromatography and specific methods for polysaccharides and amino acids, (iii) quantification of the main algal pigments (chlorophyll, pheophytine), and (iv) enumeration of phytoplankton and bacteria through flow cytometry. This thorough characterization can provide valuable information to quantify the risks of fouling and biofouling. SDI measurement is also included as part of the characterization approach.

This presentation is available to AMTA Members only.