Title: Assessment of an ultrafiltration pre-treatment system for a seawater reverse osmosis plant

Authors: S.A. Tiwari, D. Goswami, S. Prabhakar, P.K. Tewari

Addresses: Desalination Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400085, India. ' Desalination Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400085, India. ' Desalination Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400085, India. ' Desalination Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai 400085, India

Abstract: The seawater reverse osmosis system requires extensive pre-treatment in order to ensure reliable performance. The conventional pre-treatment system involves dosing of chemicals, which requires frequent monitoring of raw water quality, and also involves adjusting the dosage. Besides being cumbersome, there is a lot of time lag involved in carrying out these measures. This calls for pre-treatment systems based on physicochemical mechanisms. During the last few years, Ultrafiltration (UF) has emerged as a leading unit operation in order to render raw seawater compatible with reverse osmosis operations. In this context, the Desalination Division of BARC has already installed an operational UF pre-treatment system. In this paper, we examine the role of UF in the overall operations of the seawater reverse osmosis system.

Keywords: bacteria; colloids; conventional filtration; hollow-fibre cartridges; silt density index; turbidity; water quality; ultrafiltration pretreatment; seawater reverse osmosis; seawater desalination.

DOI: 10.1504/IJND.2006.012515

International Journal of Nuclear Desalination, 2006 Vol.2 No.2, pp.132 - 138

Published online: 20 Feb 2007 *

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