Low pressure multi-stage RO system developed in “Mega-ton WaterSystem” for large-scaled SWRO plant

A new RO system for large-scaled SWRO plant has been developed in the project named “Mega-ton Water System” with private–public cooperation in Japan. The characteristic of the newly developed RO system to increase the recovery rate is to use the short vessel that contains 2–4 elements for the first stage, and to use relatively long vessel for the second stage after inter-booster pump in order to reduce the pressure and the flux of the lead element The new RO system used by low pressure new SWRO element studied by this project is capable of the high recovery rate (under 65%) and allows the scale of the intake and pretreatment equipment to reduce compared to conventional system. Considering also to new isobaric ERD that has been developed in this project, the energy consumption was estimated and compared the results with that of conventional system. It is suggested that the reduction of energy consumption is to be about 20% compared with a conventional system. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The following conclusions were obtained. (1) A new RO system (low pressure multi stage system: LMS) that enables high RO recovery rate (under 65%) is developed. The system reduces the pressure and the flux of the lead element by using short vessel that contains 2–4 elements for the first stage, and using relatively long vessel for the second stage after interbooster pump. (2) In the estimation of the energy consumption, large-scaled desalination plant which applied the various technologies in Mega-ton Water System project allows the reduction of the energy consumption by about 20% compared with a commercialized system. (3) In the estimation of the CAPEX, Mega-ton system enables CAPEX/ Water Production Capacity to be 750 $/(m3/d). Acknowledgment This study was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through the “Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology (FIRST Program).” The author's deepest appreciation goes to Mega-ton Water System project led by Dr. Masaru Kurihara.