Title

Canary in a membrane plant: A sentinel against membrane scaling

Authors

Authors

J. Tharamapalan;S. J. Duranceau

Comments

Authors: contact us about adding a copy of your work at STARS@ucf.edu

Abbreviated Journal Title

J. Am. Water Work Assoc.

Keywords

ELIMINATION; Engineering, Civil; Water Resources

Abstract

A two-element membrane pressure vessel was installed as a "canary" unit on a full-scale reverse osmosis (RO) membrane process to monitor scale formation while changes in the plant's pretreatment processes were implemented. Sulfuric acid pretreatment ahead of an RO process was to be progressively reduced and discontinued per the findings of a pilot study. To safeguard the full-scale membrane process against unforeseen failure resulting from scaling when sulfuric acid was eliminated from the RO feedwater, the canary unit was introduced. Concentrate from the second stage of the RO process train served as the feed stream to the canary unit, thereby allowing the unit to provide an earlier indication of scaling in lieu of scaling the full-scale RO process. The canary unit was intended to act as an early warning to operators who could intervene to protect the RO plant from unforeseen loss of membrane productivity resulting from scaling.

Journal Title

Journal American Water Works Association

Volume

106

Issue/Number

2

Publication Date

1-1-2014

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

39

Last Page

40

WOS Identifier

WOS:000333723300011

ISSN

2164-4535

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