Analysis of Boujdour desalination plant performance

Conventional water resources meant for drinking water supply in Morocco’s Southern Provinces are very scarce. In order to offset this shortage the National Office for Potable Water (ONEP) entrusted with potable water planning and production in Morocco, has since 1975 resorted to the development of non-conventional techniques for iron removal, desulfurization, demineralization and desalination to yield drinking water from local resources. These remain the most developed technologies in the southern area.

With respect to operating results thus obtained and which made it possible to: • maintain the conductivity of water produced round values less 1200 µs/cm, in compliance with forecast and guarantees initially set forth, • cancel SBS injection; the impact on reagent operation and cost is not trivial. It can be concluded that applying this new procedure made it possible to remedy disorders reported at the Boujdour desalination plant whose origin must be the unsteadiness of PT-A, PT-B layer. The new conditioning method for membranes as well as acid pH (6.0–6.5) allowed to ensure this steadiness. However the interaction between the pH of pre-treated water and the steadiness of PT-B applied on membranes cannot be accounted for with accuracy since disorders reported at Boujdour desalination plant have not been confirmed at Laayoune desalination plant which is yet designed according to the same way and operating virtually under similar conditions.