High Recovery For Quick Recovery: A Desalination Solution For Multiple Challenges

A southwestern (AZ) community faced a tough challenge to quickly identify an alternative water source and install a new and cost-effective treatment solution in a period of 6 months to provide potable water for the community during the temporary shutdown of the existing surface water treatment plants.

The only readily available water source was groundwater from an idle well that had never been used due to high concentrations of nitrate, uranium, iron, and total dissolved solids (TDS). Biological treatment, ion exchange, and flow-reversal reverse osmosis (RO) were all evaluated as potential treatment solutions. Since RO was found to be the best fit for a multi-contaminant situation, access to an ultra-high recovery flow-reversal RO process that could reach and even exceed 88 percent recovery made this option even more attractive compared to the 75 percent recovery rate expected with conventional RO.

Not only did the flow-reversal RO process produce more drinking water from the same feed flow, but it also simplified concentrate management by significantly reducing concentrate flow by over 50 percent.

This webinar will describe in detail the rationale and design criteria used to build the ultra-high recovery flow-reversal RO system.