Pall Aria™ Installations for Seawater Treatment
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Pall conducted long-term pilot testing at three locations to determine the effectiveness of Pall Aria systems for pretreating Mediterranean seawater prior to reverse osmosis. The tests compared the outcomes of seawater processing under the following conditions:
The data showed that there were clear benefits to pretreating with coagulation and to processing using the EFM protocol. Coagulation and the EFM protocol provided similar benefits, with the EFM protocol costing significantly less than coagulation.
Benefits of using coagulation pretreatment or the EFM Protocol
- No pretreatment
- Pretreatment using coagulation with ferric chloride (FeCl3)
- Enhanced flux maintenance (EFM) protocol with or without pretreatment
Summary of operating conditions at three pilot sites
|
Site 1 |
Site 2 Test Number 4 5 6 |
Site 3 Test Number 7 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seawater pretreatment |
FeCl3 | FeCl3 | FeCl3 | No | FeCl3 | No | No |
| Enhanced flux maintenance (EFM) |
Daily | Daily | Daily | No | No | Daily | Daily |
| Air scrub frequency | 30 | 30 | 30 | 20 | 20 | 20 | 40 |
| Instant flux (L/hm2) | 60 | 80 | 90 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 117 |
| Normalized flux (L/hm2@20°C) |
67 | 91 | 103 | 82 | 79 | 91 | 100 |
The data showed that there were clear benefits to pretreating with coagulation and to processing using the EFM protocol. Coagulation and the EFM protocol provided similar benefits, with the EFM protocol costing significantly less than coagulation.
Benefits of using coagulation pretreatment or the EFM Protocol
- Stable, reproducible permeate flow, with a permeate SDI of <1.8 and a mean SDI of 1.43
- Higher recovery
- Lower total operating cost
Coagulation was performed by adding a low dose of ferric chloride (FeCl3) upstream of the Pall Aria system. The data showed a number of significant benefits provided by this method.
- More stable system performance
- Controlled fouling
- Improved water quality as compared to water processed without pretreatment.
Processing using the EFM protocol provided similar benefits to pretreatment with coagulation, with the added benefit of lower cost.
- No fouling of membranes
- Improved water quality
- Constant, higher, enhanced flux
- Cost significantly less than pretreatment by coagulation
