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DESALITECH PURIFIES HIGH SILICA GROUNDWATER IN EL PASO AT RECORD RECOVERY RATES

June 28, 2016Fan

High Recovery Reverse Osmosis Process Defies Silica Scaling Standards

Desalitech announced recently that its ReFlex reverse osmosis (RO) process successfully purified groundwater at the Kay Bailey Hutchison (KBH) Desalination plant in El Paso, Texas, at record high water recovery rates. The announcement was made upon completion of tests conducted by the University of Texas’ Center for Inland Desalination Systems (CIDS) over a period of eight months. The tests successfully demonstrated brackish water desalination operation at 94% recovery without silica (and other) scaling, far exceeding the recovery rates possible with traditional RO technology. The demonstration establishes a new standard for water efficiency in reverse osmosis processes with significant global financial and environmental implications.

Silica is a natural contaminant present in ground water around the world that is notorious for precipitating in desalination and other membrane processes, producing a dense coating that is nearly impossible to remove. Accordingly, the water recovery rate at which a reverse osmosis system can operate is limited by the presence of silica and other sparingly soluble constituents. Low-recovery operation results in a high-volume waste stream that requires difficult and expensive treatment or disposal. The prospect of sustainable inland RO operation at recovery rates that exceed the saturation concentrations of these salts represents a technological breakthrough for industrial and municipal water purification.

The 27.5 million gallon per day KBH plant was commissioned in 2007 to supply drinking water to El Paso. The plant assures public water supply despite drought conditions, emergency situations, population growth and salt water intrusion into fresh water aquifers. The plant pumps groundwater from an onsite nearby wellfield to treatment works that include sand strainers, cartridge filters and reverse osmosis equipment. The plant is currently operating at 82.5% recovery, limited by the traditional multi-stage RO design along with the high silica concentrations, resulting in a wastewater stream that is sent to disposal wells.

CIDS installed a mobile containerized Desalitech RO pilot unit at the KBH plant in June of 2015. The pilot unit was equipped with standard reverse osmosis membranes, pumps and other components, which operated at typical membrane flux and crossflow rates. Recovery rates above 90% were sustained for days of continuous testing. The highest recovery achieved without scale formation was 94%, corresponding to silica supersaturation of 273%. For context, traditional reverse osmosis and distillation systems are generally limited to a maximum of 100% silica saturation. Detailed results of the tests are expected to be published by CIDS.

About Desalitech
Desalitech provides high efficiency water treatment for industrial, agricultural and wastewater reuse and concentration applications. Our next-generation ReFlex Reverse Osmosis products feature patented CCD technology – a highly efficient, reliable and flexible water treatment platform that our clients rely on for mission critical water needs. The CCD process typically reduces waste by 50 to 75 percent and energy consumption by up to 35 percent, significantly reducing operating costs. Desalitech is proud to be headquartered in Newton, MA and manufactures its products in the USA.

About The Center for Inland Desalination Systems
The Center for Inland Desalination Systems (CIDS) builds on a strong foundation of related research already being done by faculty members in geological sciences, chemistry, and civil engineering at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). CIDS researchers are primarily focused on inland desalination issues such as researching and developing high recovery desalination processes and recovering useful products from desalination waste streams. For more information, visit http://cids.utep.edu.

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  • How to Disrupt an Industry that Doesn’t Want Change: Q&A with Desalitech
  • Desalitech Wins 2017 Best Place to Work in the Water Industry Award from Hunter Crown

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© 2019 Desalitech – All Rights Reserved

Advantages

Ultimate Recovery –

Desalitech is removing the mechanical recovery limitation of traditional RO, while extending its chemistry
induced limitations.

With ReFlex systems, recovery is determined by the frequency of the purge steps that are controlled by the operating software, and not by the mechanical design and the number of stages like in a traditional reverse osmosis system. Enter 98% recovery in the control panel, and the system will initiate a purge only when 98% recovery could be achieved.

Desalitech systems can extend recovery beyond the chemistry limitation of traditional reverse osmosis by exposing the tail membranes to the maximum concentration only for short intervals rather than permanently like traditional reverse osmosis.


Reduced Energy Consumption – Unlike traditional reverse osmosis systems that operate at constant high pressure, Desalitech systems start each batch at a low pressure which is gradually increased during the batch as concentration in the systems builds up. This leads to an average pressure which is lower than the constant pressure of traditional reverse osmosis. During the purge, the concentrate is discharged at the minimum pressure, rather than at maximum pressure like in traditional reverse osmosis process.

The combination of these factors typically results in a 20% to 35% reduction of energy consumption.


Resilience and Reliability – Desalitech systems are built with single stage short membrane arrays which allows for optimal flux distribution, a higher and more precisely controlled cross flow, and concentration variations that disrupt both scaling and organic fouling growth in the system.

Desalitech’s process resilience to fouling and scaling, greatly improving operational reliability.


Unlimited Flexibility and Adaptivness – Recovery, cross flow and flux are all interconnected in traditional reverse osmosis, but completely independent in Desalitech systems. In addition, they are all fully controlled and optimized by Desalitech’s operating software in real time. The same system can deal with completely different water treatment applications and behave completely differently for each – it can treat city water in the morning, reuse waste streams in the afternoon, and act as a second pass ultrapure system in the evening.

Desalitech systems fully adapt themselves to changing conditions in order to keep delivering maximum performance and maximum reliability.


Standard, Certified Components – Desalitech systems utilize standard high quality reverse osmosis membranes and components, with the full warranty and performance guarantee of leading vendors such as Dow, Hydranautics, Grundfos and Allen Bradley. There is no specialty or noncompliant equipment or components to a Desalitech system, and the system can be operated and maintained either by your team, your existing service providers, or by Desalitech.


Trusted Source – Desalitech is the only trusted source for Closed Circuit Desalination or ReFlex reverse osmosis. Desalitech systems are covered by patents in dozens of countries around the world, and cannot be legally offered by anyone but Desalitech and its official partners.

If you would like to verify that your supplier is an official partner of Desalitech, please contact us at info@desalitech.com or call +1-617-564-1647

Liberation Capital

Liberation Capital is a Global Private Equity Fund specializing in project finance for distributed renewable energy, water and wastewater projects. Liberation Capital supports modular, repeatable, decentralized projects like those served by Desalitech. Its investment model centers on strategic partnerships with CleanTech technology firms and project developers with multi-project/multi-year investment horizons. www.liberationcapital.com

SPRING CREEK

Spring Creek Investment Management, LLC is a Philadelphia-based family office with a broad range of investments including clean water technology.

AQUA AGRO

AquAgro Fund is a venture capital fund formed to focus primarily on Israel’s innovative water and agriculture technologies, as well as other clean technologies. The Fund aims to realize substantial capital appreciation through private equity and equity-related investments in high-potential Israeli and Israeli-related early-stage to late-stage companies.
www.aquagrofund.com

Trusted Source

Desalitech is the only trusted source for Closed Circuit Desalination or ReFlex reverse osmosis. Desalitech systems are covered by patents in dozens of countries around the world, and cannot be legally offered by anyone but Desalitech and its official partners.

If you would like to verify that your supplier is an official partner of Desalitech, please contact us at info@desalitech.com or call +1-617-564-1647.

Standard, Certified Components

Desalitech systems utilize standard high quality reverse osmosis membranes and components, with the full warranty and performance guarantee of leading vendors such as Dow, Hydranautics, Grundfos and Allen Bradley. There is no specialty or noncompliant equipment or components to a Desalitech system, and the system can be operated and maintained either by your team, your existing service providers, or by Desalitech.

Unlimited Flexibility and Adaptivity

Recovery, cross flow and flux are all interconnected in traditional reverse osmosis, but completely independent in Desalitech systems. In addition, they are all fully controlled and optimized by Desalitech’s operating software in real time. The same system can deal with completely different water treatment applications and behave completely differently for each – it can treat city water in the morning, reuse waste streams in the afternoon, and act as a second pass ultrapure system in the evening.

Desalitech systems fully adapt themselves to changing conditions in order to keep delivering maximum performance and maximum reliability.

Resilience and Reliability

Desalitech systems are built with single stage short membrane arrays which allows for optimal flux distribution, a higher and more precisely controlled cross flow, and concentration variations that disrupt both scaling and organic fouling growth in the system.

Desalitech’s process resilience to fouling and scaling, greatly improving operational reliability.

Reduced Energy Consumption

Unlike traditional reverse osmosis systems that operate at constant high pressure, Desalitech systems start each batch at a low pressure which is gradually increased during the batch as concentration in the systems builds up. This leads to an average pressure which is lower than the constant pressure of traditional reverse osmosis. During the purge, the concentrate is discharged at the minimum pressure, rather than at maximum pressure like in traditional reverse osmosis process.

The combination of these factors typically results in a 20% to 35% reduction of energy consumption.