Duplex Seawater Reverse Osmosis Pilot System

Start Start Date: February 2002
Completion Date: April 2002
Client Contact: Lisa Henthorne, CH2M Hill

Bureau of Reclamation
Ingleside, Texas

Layne Christensen Company was contracted through Aqua Resources International with the US Bureau of Reclamation to participate in a study of different pre-treatment technologies to be utilized for seawater desalination. Layne was responsible for the design and fabrication of a "duplex" seawater system as well as providing commissioning assistance and on-going service and support for the two-year study. The seawater reverse osmosis unit is actually composed of two separate units, each capable of producing 15,000 gallons per day. The units have a common control system with advanced instrumentation and a downloadable data logger with graphic display. With this design, two different pre-treatment processes are used on duplicate units with identical membrane and process configuration to assist in determining the best possible pre-treatment configurations.

Studies were conducted using conventional filtration, microfiltration and ultrafiltration in Ingleside, Texas. Layne staff was also involved in the development of the study, installation of the equipment and evaluation of the final results for the Bureau of Reclamation project. The most successful process arrangement from the study was a Layne constructed Norit X-Flow UF pretreatment system for the Layne-built seawater RO system.