Reverse Osmosis Plant

Salt Separation services
Thursday, 27 March 2014 00:00

Reverse Osmosis Plant
Written by ram
Reverse Osmosis
Reverse osmosis is one of the most successful desalination processes that is
used widely on most cruise ships, cargo ships and also on industrial &
Domestic water production. RO plant is considered one of the most
successful method of desalination as the size of the system can be reduced
or increased to suit the requirement varying from a house hold process to an
industrial process with larger output.

Let us first understand what is Osmosis?

Osmosis is a natural process involving fluid flow across a membrane which is
a semi permeable one. The direction and relative quantities of fluid flow is
determined by the chemical potential which is a function of pressure,
temperature and concentration of dissolved solids.

When two solutions of different concentrations are separated by a semi
permeable membrane, water from the less concentrated solution will, due to
the natural phenomenon of osmosis, pass through the membrane to dilute
the more concentrated solution to make it an equivalent concentration to
itself.
In simple words: If a container separated in to two by a semi-permeable
membrane is filled with fresh water one side and sea water on the other
side, the fresh water will diffuse through the membrane and move towards
sea water side to equal the concentrations on both the sides.

Osmotic Pressure:

This is one of the important factors in Osmosis & Reverse Osmosis process.
if the hydraulics of this process are taken into account, as the water passes
from the less concentrated solutions into the more concentrated solution to
dilute it, the static head of the more concentrated solution increases and the
one of the less concentrated solution decreases thus giving a net pressure.
Equilibrium of the two solutions occurs when the pressure differential is
sufficiently high to Stop the fluid flow across the membrane this
pressure is called the osmotic pressure.

Reverse Osmosis
We have seen what Osmosis is! Now, what is Reverse Osmosis?
Reverse Osmosis is the use of this natural process in the reverse direction.
Pressure is exerted on the more concentrated side of the membrane to
overcome the natural osmotic pressure and force water out of the
concentrated solution and through the membrane.
Particles, bacteria and the larger organics are blocked by molecular filtering,
however RO also involves an Ionic repulsion process, where by only water is
allowed to pass through the semipermeable membrane, whilst virtually all
dissolved molecules are rejected. The semipermeable membrane rejects
multi charged ions such as calcium and sulphate at rates exceeding 99%
while single charged ions such as sodium are rejected at rates from 90-96%

Semi-Permeable membrane stack usually used on RO plants.
Permeate??
The fresh water produced through such membranes is called Permeate.
According USPH rules and regulations, such water until treated with required
PPM of Chlorine and pH correction made to maintain the pH value not more
than 7.8 may not be called as potable water; hence its called a Permeate.
Reverse Osmosis process flow chart.

Now let use get deeper into each process charted down in the flow chart.
1. Feed Water: This is typically the water that needs to be desalinated.
Feed water is supplied to the system using a feed pump. Feed is passed
through a strainer. The same pump is used to back wash the Sand filters
which we will see in next steps.
2. Sand Filtration: This process is for the removal of relatively large
suspended solids that may be present in the raw water. Sand filtration is
carried out by a filter vessels (Usually 2 in numbers or more depending upon
quality of feed water) which typically contains a combination of different
dimension grits stored in layers with coarse sand. Empty space is
intentionally left above the grit media to allow space for bed expansion
during filter backwashing. The design throughput of the filter is such that
they will provide sufficient filtered water for correct operation of the R O
Plant. The total design flow rate of filters in parallel is set to a required
value, this flow should not be exceeded as the filtration rate for optimum
performance will be exceeded which in turn could mean a vastly reduced
quality filtrate.

Backwashing:
Backwashing of the filters is carried out to remove the accumulated solid
particulates from the filtering media layers; it involves reversing the
normal flow and discharging it to waste.
Backwashing is carried out on a set frequent depending upon the feed
quality or if the differential pressure increases by 1.0 bar between the
inlet to the outlet.
The backwash flow rate will vary depending upon the feed water
temperature. It is critical that the correct flow rate is used; a satisfactory
wash may not be achieved if it is too low or, on the other hand, media
may be washed away if the wash water flow rate is too high.

The next step is the Anti-scalant Dosing!
ANTISCALANT DOSING
Seawater contains sparingly soluble salts of Calcium, Barium, etc. These
salts naturally have no tendency to precipitate, however, as the seawater
passes through the plant and permeate is removed, the concentration of
salts increases to such a degree that precipitation on the membrane surface
can occur and thereby reduce their performance.
To suppress the precipitation of these salts a solution of a proprietary
antiscalant compound is dosed into the feed water which acts as a scaling
inhibitor, thus allowing more efficient operation.

The Next step is CARTRIDGE FILTRATION
The feed water free from large suspended solids and dosed with antiscalant
is passed through a 10 micron absolute rated cartridge filter, this ensures
that the feed water to the RO membrane elements is free from any fine
particulate matter ensuring maximum performance from the RO membrane
elements, the filter also protects the HP pump in the event of a sand filter
lateral failure.

The next step is the Feed Pumps, As RO process involves pressure exerted
on the fluid with the higher concentration to overcome the Osmotic
Pressure.

HP FEED PUMPS AND ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
The high pressure pump supplies the pressure needed to push water through
the membrane, even as the membrane rejects the passage of salt through it.
Typical pressures
1. For brackish water range from 225 to 375 psi (15.5 to 26 bar, or 1.6 to 2.6
MPa).
2. For seawater, pressure range from 800 to 1,180 psi (55 to 81.5 bar or 6 to
8 MPa).
Such high pressure is achieved by one or more HP pumps running in parallel.
Usually these are axial piston pump.

Energy Recovery Unit

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ENERGY RECOVERY
Desalination, the product of potable water for seawater, has been done for
centuries. Until now, however, desalination has been considered a costly
alternative because of the high energy consumption in the process.
Early desalination plants relied on evaporation technology. The most
advanced seawater evaporation desalination plants using multiple stages
have an energy consumption of over 9 kW/m of potable water produced.
For this reason large plants were initially constructed in Places with cheap
abundant energy such as the Middle East.
The device recovers hydraulic energy from the high pressure reject stream
and transfers that energy to the feed stream. In real terms, for example,
the high pressure pumps would only need to delivery 16.75 m/h at 59.5
bar instead of 16.75 m/h at 74 bar.
Next step is MEMBRANE ARRAY;
Filtered, pressurised water is passed to the RO membrane elements and is
desalinated. Within each stream feed water enters the first vessel and is
split into two flows, permeate (high quality, potable water) and reject
(concentrated feed water). The reject from the first vessel then feeds the
second vessel where again it is split into two flows, permeate and reject.
This process is the same in each of the remaining streams. Reject from the
last vessel in each of the three streams is manifolded together then flows
through the reject control valve and to waste. The reject control valve is
used to regulate the pressure within the membrane stack, which in turn
regulates the permeate flow rate and quality.
Last modified on Saturday, 29 March 2014 19:09
ram
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Salt Separation services

Thursday, 27 March 2014 00:00

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