• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.15-29
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• 2014

Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination has gained wide and increasing acceptance around the world as a straightforward undertaking to alleviate the alarming water crisis. An enhanced monitoring of the quality of the water feeding in seawater RO (SWRO) plant through the application of an effective pretreatment option is one of the keys to the success of RO technology in desalination plants. Over the past 10 years, advances in ultrafiltration (UF) membrane technologies in application for water and wastewater treatment have prompted an impetus for using membrane pretreatment in seawater desalination plants. By integrating SWRO plant with UF pretreatment, the rate of membrane fouling can be significantly reduced and thus extend the life of RO membrane. With the growing importance and significant advances attained in UF pretreatment, this review presents an overview of UF pretreatment in SWRO plants. The advantages offered by UF as an alternative of pretreatment option are compared to the existing conventionally used technologies. The current progress made in the integration of SWRO with UF pretreatment is also highlighted. Finally, the recent advances pursued in UF technology is reviewed in order to provide an insight and hence path the way for the future development of this technology.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.301-309
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• 2015

Importance of pretreatment for seawater desalination is growing rapidly. Proper selection of pretreatment is critical for the successful, long-term operation in the seawater desalination plant such as seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO). The purposes of seawater pretreatment are to remove particulate, colloidal materials, organic, inorganic materials, microorganisms and their by-products present in the seawater, and thus to improve the performance of seawater desalination systems. However, pretreatment is most challenging for designing and operating seawater desalination plants because of fluctuations of water qualities, site specifications and wide ranges of target materials present in the seawater to be treated. In addition, it is also becoming evident increasingly that microscopic algae are a major cause of operational problems, for example, membrane fouling which is long-standing problem in SWRO process. Pretreatment strategies prior to the operation of seawater desalination technologies should be even more complicated by algae blooms and release of their harmful by-products in marine environment. This paper reviews the roles of various pretreatment methods in seawater desalination process. Benefits and drawbacks are described, which should be taken into account in future studies on selecting pretreatment for seawater desalination process.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.205-209
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• 2003

The various pretreatment processes were evaluated for removal of oil pollutants with weathered oil contaminated seawater in a reverse osmosis desalination process. Weathered oil contaminated seawater was made by biodegradation and photooxidation with oil containing seawater. Coagulation, ultrafiltration, advanced oxidation processes and granular activated carbon filtration was used with pretreatment for dissolved organic carbon. Crude oil was removed but. weathered oil contaminated seawater was not removed by biodegradation and coagulation. DOC and E260 was removed with about 20 % and 40 % by membrane filter of cut off molecular weight 500. So, the most of dissolved organic carbon in weathered oil contaminated seawater was revealed that molecular weight was lower than 500. It is difficult to remove DOC in weathered oil contaminated seawater by advanced oxidation processes treatment, but, E260 was removed more high. However, DOC in weathered oil contaminated seawater was easily adsorbed to GAC. It is revealed that DOC was removed by adsorption.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.555-560
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• 2013

A cost analysis method for pretreament processes of a large scale seawater desalination plant was considered using a cost estimation model, WaTER (Water Treatment Estimation Routine). This model is based on cost functions of U.S. EPA to conduct economic analysis of water treatment facilities. A virtual seawater desalination plant which has pretreatment production capacity of $100,000m^3$ per day was chosen as a model plant. Dual media filtration and microfiltration systems were compared as pretreatment process, and the following reverse osmosis process was modeled. As a result, microfiltration showed a price competitiveness in condition of operating with reverse osmosis process by reducing the loads of water treatment and membrane cleaning despite it's high annual cost.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.811-823
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• 2009

Seawater desalination process using a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane has been considered as one of the most promising technologies in solving the water scarcity problems in many arid regions around the world. To protect RO membrane in the process, a thorough understanding of the pretreatment process is particularly needed. Seawater organic matters (SWOMs) may form a gel layer on the membrane surface, which will increase a concentration polarization. As the SWOMs can be utilized as a substrate, membrane biofouling will be progressed on the RO membrane surface, resulting in the flux decline and increase of trans-membrane pressure drop and salt passage. In the middle of disinfection, an optimal chlorine dosage and neutralizer (sodium bisulfite, SBS) should be practiced to prevent oxidizing the surface of RO membranes. Additional fundamental research including novel non-susceptible biofouling membranes would be necessary to provide a guide line for the proper pretreatment process.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.205-212
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• 2011

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has developed over the past 40 years to control a 44% market share in the world desalting production capacity and an 80% share in the total number of desalination plants installed worldwide. The application of conventional and low-pressure membrane pretreatment processes to seawater RO (SWRO) desalination has undergone accelerated development over the past decade. Reliable pretreatment techniques are required for the successful operation of SWRO processes, since a major issue is membrane fouling associated with particulate matter/colloids, organic/inorganic compounds, and biological growth. While conventional pretreatment processes such as coagulation and granular media filtration have been widely used for SWRO, there has been an increased tendency toward the use of ultrafiltration/microfiltration (UF/MF) instead of conventional treatment techniques. The literature shows that both the conventional and the UF/MF membrane pretreatment processes have different advantages and disadvantages. This review suggests that, depending on the feed water quality conditions, the suitable integration of multiple pretreatment processes may be considered valid since this would utilize the benefits of each separate pretreatment.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.253-266
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• 2012

In this work, the effect of hybrid salts precipitation-nanofiltration (SP-NF) process on the scale deposits in thermal and membrane desalination processes has been studied. The analysis was carried out to study the scale formation from the Arabian Gulf seawater in MSF and RO reference processes by changing the percentage of pretreatment from 0 to 100%. Four different SP-NF configurations were suggested. A targeted Top Brine Temperature (TBT) of $130^{\circ}C$ may be achieved if 30% portion is pretreated by SP and/or NF processes. As a rule of thumb, each 1% pretreatment portion increases the reference TBT of $115^{\circ}C$ by $0.6^{\circ}C$. For both MSF and RO, parallel pretreatment of certain percentage of the feed by SP and the rest by NF, showed the lowest scale values. The case showed the best values for sulfate scale prevention and the highest values of increasing the monovalent ions relative to the divalent scale forming ions. Sulfate scale is significant in MSF process while carbonate scale is significant in RO. Salt precipitation was suggested because it is less costly than nanofiltration, but nanofiltration was used here because it is efficient in sulfate ions removal.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.207-214
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• 2009

This study examines the optimum filtration conditions in pretreatment of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis. For this purpose, Masan bay seawater is treated through a gravity filter column while $FeCl_3$ is added as coagulant. The conditions of coagulantd osage, media depth, filtration rate, and backwash time are evaluated. The study results show that the filtrate quality improved with increasing coagulant dosage, but head loss rapidly increased. After 4mg/L, the unit filter run volume reduced to less than $200m^3/m^2$. Considering the head loss development, 4mg/L is determined as the optimum dosage. The better filtrate qualities are obtained with depth of 100cm than that of 80cm. The two stage filtration, which outperformed the single stage filtration, is suggested for treatment of Masan bay. The filtration rate of 5m/h is decided as the optimum condition considering the head loss development. At 10m/h, the filtrate quality deteriorated even though the extent was minimal, and head loss increased rapidly. The backwash time of 10 min is decided appropriate.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.343-350
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• 2008

Many reports have warned of insufficient water supply in most countries in future and prospected providing safe and clean water become more difficult by lack of access to sustainable drinking water resources. Several facts and figures explained the impact by natural climate change and human activity results in the water scarcity and deterioration. Among many scientific solutions, the seawater desalination using a reverse osmosis membrane, so called SWRO (Seawater Reverse Osmosis) process, has been recognized as one of the most promising alternatives because of its stability and efficiency in producing large amount of drinking water from seawater through desalination by membrane filtration. Recently, in Korea, numerous researches are conducted to develop more productive and cost effective SWRO process for its wide implementation. The objective of this paper is to review the patents concerning SWRO technologies involving the plant engineering, maintenance including pretreatment of seawater and fouling control, module design, and mechanical units development for energy saving. The patents in Korea, U.S., Japan, Europe, and PCT were intensively researched and analyzed to provide the state of the art as well as leading edge technology on SWRO. This information can hopefully suggest meaningful guidelines on future research and development.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.447-451
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• 2004

The various pretreatment processes were evaluated to remove organic pollutants of weathered oil contaminated seawater(WOCS) for reverse osmosis desalination process, Biodegradation, coagulation, ultrafiltration, advanced oxidation processes and granular activated carbon filtration were used to evaluate the potential of organic pollutants removal in WOCS. Dissolved Organic Carbon(DOC) was almost not removed by biodegradation in WOCS. DOC was removed by 25% and 10% with the addition of $FeCl_3$ and PAC in WOCS, respectively. The removal efficiency using ultrafiltration(WOCS 500) was about 20% of DOC and 40% of $E_{260}$, respectively. In AOP application of WOCS, the removal of organic materials was improved up to 60% by the combination of $UV/O_3$ compared to UV process. However, 98% of DOC in woes could be removed by granular activated carbon filtration. It is revealed that activated carbon filtration is the best process for the pretratment of DOC removal.