My reverse osmosis plant's membranes are fouled by carbonaceous material like coal fines and Tar, due to which its production has been reduced up to 40%. I would like to learn the method to wash the membranes chemically. Please guide me if anyone is expertize of the field.
Regards.
Dear Muhammad,
Hor big is your plant? Can you heat the water (50C) for CIP? Do you use a high pH for cleaning? Do you use any speciality cleaning chemicls speciifically for tar and sticky materials? Maria
Dear John Machell, Thanks for your suggestion.
Dear Maria, plant capacity is 5m3/hr, heat to water can be possible here, yes usually use 12-14 pH solution. NaOH is being used here as the cleaning agent for organic /tar fouling.
Regards.
Dear Muhammad,
I suggest that you heat the water.
However, you may need to use a speciality chemical specifically targetting sticky material such as tar (e.g. Ultrasil). Are any of these available in Pakistan? Maria
Dear Maria,
Please provide the chemical name of the compound, as this "Ultrasil" is some brand name. So I need chemical name or formula.
Regards.
If they haven't changed the formula since I sold the company - Lavasol 7 from Professional Water Technologies distributor
UAE, Oman, Qatar
VasuChem Technologies FZC
A 2-62, P.O. Box No.9446
SAIF Zone, Sharjah UAE
9716-5570068 phone
9716-5574068 fax
Hi Muhammad, You need to remove all the hydrocarbons before the feedwater enters your RO plant. In our R&D we have developed a process that does this, leaving no detectable trace of any hydrocarbons, BTEX or VOCs.
Muhammad Pei Jun Make a major observation. You first need to take in account the membranes' material, because you can dammage them not only by the temperature but the chemicals you are using, the remotion of carbonaceous material does not seem a simple issue, because it depends on the size of the particles too. And your cleaning could be as easy as to remove the superficial layer to a very specializad chemical treatment. Start for the easiest that could be cheking inside the tubes and verify the condition. I suppose you have prefiltration, and thats a great indicator of the size of the particles. Or if you don't have it, the you must consider to put them in order to avoid the membranes saturate. If the material is organic agents like peroxide solutions are helpfull but I insist it depends of the materials your membranes are built.
Greetings.
Most of reverse osmosis manufacturer recommends chemically enhanced cleaning Elements should be conducted when one or more of the below mentioned parameters are applicable:
• The normalized permeate flow drops 10%
• The normalized salt passage increases 5 - 10%
• The normalized pressure drop (feed pressure minus concentrate pressure) increases 10 - 15%
In case of dow filmtec membrane, please check on
http://msdssearch.dow.com/PublishedLiteratureDOWCOM/dh_060a/0901b8038060a66f.pdf?filepath=liquidseps/pdfs/noreg/609-23010.pdf&fromPage=GetDoc
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