Saline Water Conversion Cooperation

With the new approach to seawater desalination processes, which was developed at Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), R&D Center, the nanofiltration (NF) membrane pretreatment process is used to supply feed/make-up to operate conventional seawater desalination plants. The seawater treatment first with the NF membrane removed from it turbidity and microorganism, caused significant rejection of the scale forming hardness ions, reduced TDS in Gulf Seawater and produced a new, partially desalinated seawater product, considerably different and superior to seawater in qualities and without the problems normally associated with seawater. The said desalination arrangements lead to a significant improvement in the seawater desalination processes. The NF pilot plant used in above investigation has been in continuous operation for over 10,000 hours. The pretreatment of the nonchlorinated seawater feed (taken from an open intake) to the NF pilot plant was limited to simple, nonchemical dual media filtration without coagulation. The differential pressure across the NF membrane remained steady at about 15 psi (≈1 bar) during the entire pilot plant operation. After the 10,000 hours of continuous NF pilot plant operation, an autopsy analyses of two membranes among the 10 membranes were performed, which includes, biological, chemical and physical analyses of membranes and foulant deposits on its surfaces. It was found that the lead element surface was covered with thick reddish brown slimy deposits whereas the last element was relatively clean, with slight deposits only. The deposits constitutes mainly the primary organic matter, iron, chromium, in addition to the chemical constituents usually found in the seawater. Also, scale formin