What are the Features of Industrial RO Plants?

An industrial RO plant enables a company to utilise alternative water sources like brackish groundwater, treated municipal effluent, or even seawater for their operations by removing dissolved salts, particulates and other contaminants.

While each industrial RO system is custom-designed for the specific application's requirements, there are several common features and design philosophies prevalent across these plants. Understanding these shared elements provides insight into the full capabilities and complexities involved with industrial-scale RO treatment.

We'll explore some of the typical features and design approaches incorporated into industrial RO plants.

Comprehensive Pretreatment

Perhaps the most critical aspect impacting RO membrane performance and longevity is upstream pretreatment. All industrial RO plants include extensive multi-stage pretreatment processes to condition the incoming raw water ahead of the membrane elements. This protects the membranes from particulate fouling, scaling, microbiological growth and other contamination risks.

Pretreatment trains commonly consist of screening, multimedia filtration, softening, clarification, microfiber filters and cartridge filters down to 1 micron. Chemical additions like chlorine, antiscalants, coagulants, acid/caustic, and de-chlorination are employed based on specific raw water characteristics. More advanced pretreatment can incorporate ultrafiltration, microfiltration, ion exchange resins and activated carbon ahead of RO.

Without this protective multi-barrier pretreatment approach, even the highest quality RO membranes would rapidly foul and scale, degrading performance and requiring frequent replacements. Effective pretreatment is universally incorporated into any reliable industrial RO plant design.

Redundancy and Flexibility

With industrial processes relying heavily on a consistent supply of purified water, redundancy and flexibility are common design features in RO plants. Multiple process trains with redundant equipment like backup pumps, Chemical feed systems, cartridge filters, and membrane array sections allow continued operation during maintenance and repairs.

Swing equipment like movable Cartridge Filter housings, CT's (clean, trash/temporary) piping branches and the ability to isolate process areas provide further flexibility to recover from upsets, rotate equipment service intervals and expand capacity in the future. Designs facilitate maintenance in place as well as rapid removal/replacement of RO membrane elements.

Large-scale industrial RO plants often include features enabling them to treat water from multiple raw water sources concurrently or alternately. Adjustable controls accommodate variable blending of different feed water streams. Advanced controls provide automated responses to fluctuating feed water conditions.

Residuals Management 

All RO plants produce a concentrated residual waste stream, often referred to as brine or concentrate, containing the salts, particulates and other contaminants rejected by the membranes during the separation process. Properly handling and disposing of this waste stream is a core aspect of any industrial RO system.

Common features include:

• Evaporation/Crystallizer Systems - Using heat to evaporate water and crystallise solid salts for landfill disposal

• Deep Well Injection - Disposing concentrate into specialised, permitted deep underground wells

• Waste Treatment - Incorporating settling, centrifuges, and filters to enable discharge to municipal sewers

• Surface Water Discharge - Enabling discharge back to oceans, rivers or lakes if meeting regulations

• Brine Concentrators - Using mechanical vapour recompression to dewater residuals further

Dedicated pumping, piping, tankage, and instrumentation enable the reliable conveyance and processing of residuals. Site planning must incorporate space for any required ponds, liners, and solids handling facilities. Environmental regulators carefully review residual management systems during permitting.

High-Efficiency Design 

Since RO plants require substantial energy expenditures for pumping and pretreatment, most industrial plants feature designs focused on optimising efficiency while minimising operating costs over the lifespan.

Isobaric Energy Recovery Devices and Pumping Arrangements capture and reuse energy from the high-pressure reject stream to reduce the overall pumping power required. Advanced controls and monitoring allow real-time adjustments to chemical doses, operating parameters like flow rates, concentrate staging and more to maximise recovery rates.

The evaluation considers capital costs versus expenses like membrane replacements, chemical usage, energy consumption and residual handling to identify the ideal design achieving the lowest total life cycle cost.

Materials of Construction 

Proper construction materials are essential in industrial RO plants to withstand the aggressive water quality streams involved with RO treatment and prevent premature corrosion or degradation.

Fibreglass-reinforced plastics like vinyl esters are commonly used for basins, tanks and troughs for pretreatment and residual areas handling high salinity and oxidants. Membrane housings and high-pressure piping/valves utilise superduplex stainless steels, plastics like HDPE, or speciality alloys. Lower-pressure piping can use stainless steel or PVC. Chemical dosing areas leverage materials compatible with respective chemical types.

Specialty liners, coatings, and construction materials prevent atmospheric corrosion in areas handling corrosive gases like chlorine. Grit-blasted concrete with epoxy coatings provides chemical resistance for foundations and substructures.

Overall, the combination of comprehensive pretreatment, flexibility for maintenance/expansion, robust residual management, efficiency-optimized design and corrosion-resistant materials make industrial RO plants reliable long-term solutions.

Netsol Water is Greater Noida-based leading water & wastewater treatment plant manufacturer. We are industry's most demanding company based on client review and work quality. We are known as best commercial RO plant manufacturers, industrial RO plant manufacturer, sewage treatment plant manufacturer, Water Softener Plant Manufacturers and effluent treatment plant manufacturers. Apart from this 24x7 customer support is our USP. Call on +91-9650608473, or write us at enquiry@netsolwater.com for any support, inquiry or product-purchase related query.