One-year operational experience with ultrafiltration as pretreatment of seawater reverse osmosis desalination system (Maspalomas-I Plant)

Abstract

The selection of a proper pretreatment for reverse osmosis (RO) systems is essential to produce a high-quality feed water in order to ensure a more sustainable and reliable operation. Traditionally, seawater RO installations have been operated with conventional pretreatments based on single- or two-staged media filtration, and occasionally preceded by coagulation/flocculation processes. In recent years, however, hollow fiber ultrafiltration (UF) technology has increasingly gained acceptance as a viable pretreatment alternative for seawater desalination, due to advantages such as greater capability to cope with fluctuations and high solid loads in raw waters (typical of open intakes), smaller footprint, higher and more consistent filtrate water quality, and higher environmental sustainability, ultimately demonstrating lower total water cost in the long-term operation. In this article, design and operational aspects of the country’s largest integrated UF and RO system to treat seawater in a remote island of Spain will be provided. Special emphasis will be given on the benefits that the UF technology has brought to the operator compared to the conventional pretreatment it replaced.

Keywords:

• Ultrafiltration
• Reverse osmosis pretreatment
• Integrated membrane systems
• Desalination
• Seawater

Notes

Presented at the Conference on Desalination for the Environment: Clean Water and Energy 11–15 May 2014, Limassol, Cyprus