Novel pre-treatment method for seawater reverse osmosis: Fibre media filtration

Abstract

A high rate fibre filter was used as a pre-treatment to seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) to reduce membrane fouling. Seawater was drawn from Chowder Bay where the Sydney Institute of Marine Science, Australia is located. A lab-scale fibre filter with a height of 1000 mm and a diameter of 30 mm was used in conjunction with inline coagulation. The effect of operating the fibre filter with different packing densities (105, 115 kg/m 3) and filtration velocities (40, 60 m/h) was investigated in terms of silt density index (SDI 10), modified fouling index (MFI), pressure drop (ΔP), turbidity and molecular weight distribution (MWD). The use of in-line coagulation improved the performance of fibre filter as measured by the MFI and SDI. Regardless of filtration velocity and packing density the MFI and SDI 10 values remained low as did the turbidity until the end of the filtration run. The MWD analysis showed the removal efficiencies of organic materials like biopolymers, fulvic acids, low MW acids for even experiments with the highest filtration velocity (60 m/h) and lowest packing density (105 kg/m 3). This pre-treatment has a small foot print as it has the capacity of operating at a very high filtration velocity.

Configuration of an efficient seawater pretreatment system for simultaneous organic and particulate matters removal

“…These results suggest that the HRF with low packing density operated at a high filtration velocity is an optimum operating condition with regard to filtrate quality parameters and filtration cycle time and is possible to effectively decrease fouling potential of the SWRO membrane by reducing effectively pollutants [12]. Fig.…”

Industrial Waste Waters Re-use: Application of 3FM® High Speed Filtration and High Rate Softening as Pre-Treatment of Wastewaters from the High Water Consuming Pulp&Paper Sector

“…Main impact of 3FM is on TSS content in the water and thus on turbidity as well. This technology is currently used at industrial scale on several WWTP in Korea for obtaining treated water of high quality (Ben Aim et al 2004) and has been applied as well as pre-treatment to minimize the organic fouling of SWRO membranes used for desalination (Lee et al 2009;Lee et al 2010).…”

Mechanism of Colloidal Attachment on Textile Fibrous Media

“…Textile materials have emerged in recent years as a substrate that can be used as fi lter media for the removal of colloidal particles from surface water using an attachment mechanism [8]. Superior performance in the removal of colloidal particles from water can be achieved by textile fi brous media under fi ltration velocities that are ten times higher than granular media [9]. Th ere are several varieties of textile fi bre available on the market that can be used as fi lter media.…”