Sea Water Desalination– Points to Ponder
Water is a source of life but the world has a total of 1.65 billion km3 of Water. However, only 0.3% of this total quantity is theoretically usable as a fresh water, and only 10% of that i.e. 0.03% of the world’s water is capable of economical utilization.
In the environment report ‘Global 2000’ the following comments occur: “The notion that water is a freely available resource will no longer be encountered anywhere in the world in 20 years’ time”.
Worldwide sea water desalination has been a very effective and economical way of producing potable water for drinking and industries. It is a myth that, sea water desalination is so exorbitantly expensive that it is unaffordable.Reverse Osmosis plants to convert sea water to potable drinking water and for other usages have been prevalent throughout the world for more than 3 decades. The sea water Reverse Osmosis membranes have improved in technology and efficiency over the last 15 years. The current technology available for seawater Desalination through Reverse Osmosis System has proven to be cost effective and easily maintainable. With proper process design and efficient conservation of energy sea water Desalination system with Reverse Osmosis can be a long-term solution at an affordable price. With technologies to save power such as “energy recovery turbines” cost per ltr of Desalinated sea water to potable water can work as low as US$0.001 per litre, including cost of running, maintenance and power.
EFFICIENCY & EXPERTISE
CONWAY Group of Companies was established in 1972 to overcome the need for pure potable water for drinking and for industries. In CONWAY our Research and Development wing have worked to design, develop, manufacture complete Water Treatment and Purification System. For the last four decades CONWAY has successfully designed, manufactured, installed and commissioned a number of Water Treatment Plants with Indigenous and foreign technical know-how to prime industries, fertilizers, hospitals, Government and semi-Government organization, off-shore oil rigs, refineries, soft drink manufacturers, breweries and mineral water manufacturers for various applications.
With proper selection of sea water source understanding the factors of high tide and low tide, backwaters of sea can be exploited with much higher efficiency through the Reverse Osmosis System than directly drawing water from the sea. The sea is an endless resource of water and will never deplete even if large quantities of water are drawn from its resource. The reject water from the Reverse Osmosis System can be sent back in the sea as they constitute only with concentrated salts which was originally available in the sea water. The concentrated salt is of such micro-level that it can never increase the concentration of salts in the sea water.
Alternatively, the reject water from the Reverse Osmosis System can be utilized for producing common salt by natural drying method or by flash evaporators or other salt recovery methods. The investments on Desalination Plants today are not highly exorbitant as it was 15 to 20 years ago. With world market opening up to open trade the viabilities of such projects are very encouraging.
CONWAY with its vast expertise in the field of Water Treatment in the last 4 decades has come out with cost effective and high efficiency RO recovery systems for sea water Desalination.
DESIGN AND CONCEPTUALIZATION:
CONWAY with vivid innovation and development has created different designs and concepts for Desalination. All our systems are compact by eliminating the high investment on civil infrastructures. The cost of implementing the Desalination Plant is concentrated towards technology, plant and machinery rather than dumping it on gigantic civil structures.
CONWAY has focused its expertise on compactness and readily available complete systems, which saves the essential factor of time. Technology is other primary core sector of CONWAY, which allowed us to be different form our competitors.
We differ in technology, structuring layout, compactness, operation cost and in deliverance.
CONTAINERIZED REVERSE OSMOSIS SYSTEMS
BRACKISH WATER/SEA WATER:
CONWAY has over the years built specialized brackish water and sea water plants keeping in focus relief agencies, war time army requirements, make shift facilities as well as sea side resorts.
Containerized Brackish/Sea Water Desalination Systems are manufactured in 20 feet and 40 feet containers to meet the needs for pre-installed equipment’s.
FEATURES:
The containers are well equipped with the following:
- Air Conditioning.
- Wall Panelling.
- Internal Lighting.
- Back-up Generator.
- Metal Checkered Floor.
- Polyurethane Insulation.
- Total Internal Piping with Water Treatment Plant.
- Centralized Power Panel.
- ) Instrumentation Panel.
- Voltage Protection Devices.
- Overload Protection Devices.
- Windows (Optional).
- Input, Output water Pipelines with enclosed boxes,
- Power Jack Cabling Between Generator & Container Main Panel.
Apart from the above, CONWAY uses special CPVC Frontal Piping for the pre-filtration along with advance composite FRP vessels for the Multi Media Filters. The raw Water Pump is in built in the container to provide required feed to the pre-filtration. Specialized hi-tech supports are provided throughout the container to hold equipment’s and piping’s from vibration and also to take the endurance of shifting the container from one place to another. Stainless Steel High Pressure Multistage Pumps from world leading brands like Pump Engineering, FEDCO Sulzer, ERI, Damfoos CONWAY(Canada) are used. State of art Advance Composite FRP Epoxy Vessels, which can stand pressures from 400 to 1000 psi, are used as Reverse Osmosis Housings, Reverse Osmosis Membranes for Brackish Water/ Sea Water are incorporated from the world’s leading manufacturers like Toray (Japan), Filmtec (USA). Reverse Osmosis System CIP system complete with CIP pump, CIP cartridge filter and CIP tank are provided.
Pre Micron-Bag Filters as well as Cartridge Filters in SS 316/304 prior to the Reverse Osmosis System. All piping’s in the RO Systems are made out of SS 316L, 316 and 304. Magnetic Floor Meters are provided in the product and reject outputs. Pressure cutoff switches for high pressure / low-pressure are provided interlinked with Annunciator Panel. TDS, pH as well as ORP Digital Display cum controller are provided interlocked with Annunciator Panel. Input, Output water jacks are provided with hoses for easy connection between containers. User-friendly Manuals are provided along with containerized project for easy start-up at site.
The above systems are totally pre-installed and ready to use within one hour of reaching its destination.
TECHNICAL FEATURES:
PRETREATMENT:
Wide range of selectivity in Pre-treating Sea Water for various applications, including Beach Wells, Sea Floors and on Shelf intake systems.
FILTRATION TECHNIQUES:
- Clarifiers
- Media filters
- Ultra Filtration
Energy Reclaim:
The process includes
- Energy Recovery Turbines
- Pelton Wheels
- Pressure Exchangers.
