SEAWAT a5 DESALIN COSTS AND TECHNOLOGY TRENDS By Nikolay Voutchkov STEADY TREND OF REDUCTION OF DESALINATED WATER PRODUCTION ENERGY AND COSTS COUPLED WITH INCREASING COSTS OF CONVENTIONAL WATER TREATMENT AND WATER REUSE DRIVEN BY MORE STRINGENT REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS, ARE EXPECTED TO ACCELERATE CURRENT TREND. OF RELIANCE ON OCEAN AS AN ATTRACTIVE AND COMPETITIVE WATER SOURCE. THIS TREND IS FORECASTED TO CONTINUE IN FUTURE AND TO FURTHER ESTABLISH OCEAN WATER DESALINATION AS A RELIABLE DROUGHT-PROOF ALTERNATIVE FOR MANY COASTAL COMMUNITIES WORLDWIDE.lure ype Coniguaton of aleaid Desalnation Plant reverse osmosis desalination vary in a wide wipmentoverthe range and depend upon a number of factors given in Table 1. Over the past decade, the desalination industry has successlully adopted ‘@ number of cost management approaches and technological innovations to control construction and energy costs. They include evolutionary improvements of the SWRO membrane permeability and salt rejection: refinements ofthe isobaricchamber and turbocharger type energy recovery equipment and systems; SWRO system configuration modifications aimed at reducing energy losses within the feed water distribution piping and vessels; and implementation of fewer, largersize desalination trains and pumps, and larger diameter membrane elements wich yields economy-ofscale savings ment, further improvements in structure and productivity as well as nts of innavative desalination system ations hold significant potential for further ‘and energy reduction. salination Cost and Energy Use Factors and Trends Construction costs and energy use for seawater (One of the key issues associated with optimizing ‘SWRO system construction and operation costs Figure 2: Integrated Inland Desalter Brine Disposal and Seawater Desalination Le he with Nikolay Voutchkov, Pre: From which international seawater ‘desalination projects can India learn, and implement their best practices, in your opinion? Good examples wil be some of the lesalination large projects in the Middle East (Al Dur, Bahrain; Fujairah, UAE), Australia (Perth | & I! Plants) and the US (he Carlsbad SWRO desalination plant in California), In terms of water policy of coastal communities, there are two important lessons learned: » Diversify your water portfolio to include desalination, reuse and conservation along with existing conventional water supply sources: Strive to obtain atleast 25% of yourwater ‘supply from seawater desalination, Tell us about one of the latest ‘cutting-edge technologies being used in desalination which you believe will be the trends for the future? Forward osmosis wil certainly become wvery common future technology at least in the field of industrial desalination and reuse. The use of reverse osmosis with high productivity membranes, which incorporate ‘nanotubes, holds the highest promise in terms ‘of dramatic reduction of fresh water production ‘costs for municipal water use. IF we can make membranes ith an orderly microstructure resembling the structure of a honey comb we can get up to 20 times more water from the same membrane surface, which will result in dramatic reduction in plant capital costs. While ‘we do not have such membranes available at present, Ido believe that we will within the next 10 years.IN-CONVERSATION: Sean as Seo taea) Environmental experts in India hhave been concerned about large- scale desalination plants. How real is this concern according to you, in terms of disposal of concentrate, the impact on marine life? The impact of discharge on the marine environment is very dependent on the location of the discharge and the design ofthe outa which disperses the concentrate into the surounding marine ervironment. State of the art technologies for conceriate dispersal avaiable at present allow to practically eliminates the impact of concentrate discharge ‘on the mafine habiat in the area of the cischarge At present, there are several dozen ‘desalination plants with production capacity of ‘over 100,000 may wordwide, which have been operating for over 10 years without any impact on aquatic He. Many ofthese plants are in Australi, Europe and the US, where the monitoring of marine life is very rigorous ‘and environmental reguatons are extremely demanding. Comprehensive envionmenial monitoring at these locations shows that even at very large scale, desalination projects could be designed to be environmentally sae JOne of the major challenges for ‘desalination s the intense amount of ‘energy required for the process. Can the solar, photovotale, ‘thermal, wind, geothermal, be a ‘good practical alternative’ to improve the energy efficiency of hear anyone complaining that refrigerating food is very energy intensive? | hope all of us will agree that generating high for is at least as important for our families as | is the quality of pretreated water fed to this system and the associated performance ofthe membrane pretreatment system. Over the past 10 years, industry understanding of key mechanisms of RO ‘membrane pretreatment has evolved significantly Gradually the desalination industy is adopting the use of seawater membrane pretreatment, which is believed to allow producing higher ualty seawater which in tums can facilitate more costeffective RO system design and operations. Key cost management innovations are discussed in the following sections ofthis chapter. Potential Construction | for ost CostAnd | and Energy Factor | Eneray Saving | _ Savings Technology | Percentage Trends | ofindustry ‘Average Usect Warmer Sauce | Souce Water Water | (Colocatonwth | 310% Temperature | Power Geneon a) Use Laver Source | salty Source Water | WaterorBlend | Over50% Salniy | of Seawater and Brackish Water Use Hiher Producti Elements Membrane | eres, Se eecreu Teter | CostROSystem | 510 15% ergy and Fra | Coniguatons eaucty | Adoption oflxger daneier(1610 1enehvs Binch) SWRO elements Nosinzng Hor _ | pumpand ator Pressure RO | eficency bythe Teste | ueslogeaues| S#70% Eticeney | sevingmutple RO tans. Reciey | eof bare tenee | ChanterTipe | 10%0 159% Tectnolgis Concent Tablet Key Desalination Plant Gost and Eneray Use Factors Collocation of Desalination and Power Plants Desalination of warmer source seawater usually requires less energy for membrane separation than using seawater of ambient temperature This potential energy reduction benefit could be applied by using warm water discharges from coastal power plants as source water for desalination, Coastal power generation plants clten use seawater of ambient temperature for cooling of their electricity generation units The cooling water discharged from a typical ower generation station is usually 5 to 15°C warmer than the ambient ocean water. Taking under consideration that energy needed for sal separation is reduced with 5 to 8% for every 10%C of elevated seawater temperature in the temperature range of 12 to 40°C, using warmer seawater can result in measurable energy eduction, <= http://www.water-g.com Under @ desalination plant, power station collocation configuration, the intake of the seawater desalination plant is connected to the discharge canal of the power plant to collec 8 portion of the cooling water of this plant for desalination Figure 1 The collocation configuration allows using the power plant cooling water both as source water for the seawater desalination plant and asa blending ‘water to reduce the salinity of the desalination plant concentrate prior to its discharge to the Collocation of SWRO desalination plants with esting once rough cooling coastal power plants could yield four key benefits: » The construction of a separate desalination plant outfall structure is avoided thereby reducing the overall project capital costs » The salinity of the desalination plant discharge isreduced as aresultofthe mixing and dilution of the memibrane concentrate with the power plant discharge, which has ambient seawater salinity » Because a portion of the discharge water is converted into potable water, the plant thermal discharge load is decreased, ‘which in tum lessens the negative ef of the power plant thermal plume on the aquatic environment » The blending of the desalination and the power plant discharges results inHigh Pressue Gonmmon Feed Line Figh Pgssure Common Bane Line Product High Pressure Common Brine Line Figure 3: Three-Center Design accelerated dissipation of both the salinity and the thermal discharges Wsualy, coastal power plants with once-rough paling systems use large volumes of seawater Because the power plant intake seawater has to pass through the small diameter tubes (typically 40mm or less) of the plant condensers to cool them, the plant ischerge cooling water is already sejeened through bar racks and fine screens Simiar to these used at surface water intake desalination plants. Therefore, @ desalination plant which intake is connected to the discharge Coufal of 2 power plant usvally does not require the construction of a separate intake structure, istske pipeline and screening facies (bar- tacks and fine screens), Since the construction cost of a new surface water intake structure for 4 desalination plant is typically 5 to 30% of the {otal plant construction expenditure, power plant colocation could yield significant construction cost savings. While for most collocated SWRO desalination plants adcitional source seawater screening may ‘ot be needed prior to pretreatment, in cases wher the power plant screenings ar discharged inthe outell upstream ofthe point of intake of the desalination plant, such additional screening would be necessary Therefore, i is of key impocancetto select locaton onthe powerplant auifall to connect the desalination plant intake such thatio power plant intake screenings are resent inthe discharge. Inadditon, the distance between the point of entance ofthe desalination plant concentrate into the power plant outfall pipe and the point of discharge of the outal pipe into the ocean has to be long enough for the concentrate and remaining power plant cooling water to mix completely It should be pointed out that using warmer water for desalination could have certain disadvantages associated with the accelerated bic-growth of marine bacteria on the surface of the SWRO memibrane elements which could result in the need for more frequent membrane cleaning, especially if the source seawater temperature is ‘already higher than 25°C. In addition, as indicated (on Figure 6, use of warmer water would result in production of RO permeate (and fresh product water) of higher saliniy, boron and. bromide content, and may require additional treatment if the desalination plant has to meet stingent product water quality requirements, Therefore, collocation is more likely to be feasible for locations where the ambient seawater is relatively cold (acean water temperatures of 18 °C or lower ‘occur seasonally). Examples of such locations are the coastal seawater desalination projects in northern California as well as most ofthe large desalination projects in Australia which have deep intakes and collect seawater the temperature of which during the winter season often reaches levels of 12 to 16°C. Collocation has found a large-scale implementation for the fist time at the 95,000 m'fday Tampa Seawater Desalination Plant in the US, which has been in continuous operation ee sree) Dee ariet re tgencd Rkcn asta hina) (sun tradition, wind, biowaste, waves) to generate electricity is alvays preferable from ‘an environmental point of view, however it is extremely expensive (in the range of USD 0.30 to USD 0.50/ kWh) as compared to generation of electricity from conventional fuel sources. As solar and wind-power generation, technologies develop inthe future, do believe that they will become an attractive alternative source of power supply for desalination plants as wellas other uses. In my opinion, generating ‘green electricity by _pressure-etarded ‘osmosis, especially in locations where SWRO desalination plantsarelocatedina close vicinity to wastewater treatment plants holds a higher potential for generation of green power for desalination plants than any other alternative power source. This technology hamesses the energy generated from the osmotic pressure, which naturally occurs when two fhids of Development of membranes of higher sat and pathogen rejection, and productivity, and reduced transmembrane pressure, and fouling potential » Improvement of membrane resistance to ovidants, elevated temperature and pala » Extension of membrane useful ife beyond 10 years » Integration of membrane pretreatment, advanced energy recovery and SWRO systems » Integration of brackish and seawater desalination systems » Development of new generation of high- efciency pumps and energy recovery systems for SWRO applications » Replacement of key stainless steel desalination plant components with plastic components to increase plant longevity and decrease overall cost of water production. » Reduction of membrane element costs by complete automation of the entire production and testing process » Development of methods for low-cost continuous membrane cleaning which allow to reduce downtime and chemical cleaning costs » Development for methods for lowcost membrane concentrate treatment, inplant and offsite reuse, and disposal AA recent trend in the quest for lowering the energy use for SWRO desalination is. the evelopment of nanostructured (NST) RO membranes wich provide more efficient water ‘ransport as compared to existing conventional thinfim membrane elements. The salt ‘separation membranes commonly used in RO desalination membrane elements today are dense semi-permeable polymer fims of random structure (matrix) which do not have pores. Water molecules are transported through these membrane films by diffusion and travel on a mult dimensional curvilinear path within the randomly structured polymer film matrix. This transport isrelatively ineficient in terms of membrane film vvolume/surface area and energy needed to move water molecules through the RO membranes. ‘A porous membrane structure which facilitates water transport would allow for improvement of membrane efficiency and productivity. NST membranes are RO. membranes which contain either individual straight-line nanometer size channels (tubes/particles) embedded into the random thinflm polymer matrix or are entirely made of clustered nano-sze channels (ano tubes). NST membrane technology has evolved rapidly over the past five years and recenly developed nanostructured membranes either incorporate inorganic nano-partcles within the traditional membrane polymeric film ra made of highly-structured porous film which consists of densely packed array of nanotubes. These nano-structured membranes reportedty have much higher specific permeabilty than Corwentional RO membranes at practically the same high salt rejection. In addition, nano- structured membranes have comparable or lower fouling rate than conventional thin-fim composite RO membranes operating at the same conditions, and they can be designed for enhanced rejection selectivity of specific ions For example, a UCLA/NanoH20 research team has recently developed thin-film nano-compasite (TFN) membranes which incorporate zeolite nano particles (100 nanometers in diameter) into a traditional polyamide thin membrane film. These new TEN membranes become commercially available for seawater applications in September 2010. The new membrane elements are projected to have 30 to 50% higher productivity than other currently available RO membranes (or operate at approximately 10 to 15% lower energy use if operated at the same productivity as standard RO elements. Researchers atthe Livermore National Research Laboratory in California have focused on the development of RO membranes made of vertically aligned densely packed array of carbon nano tubes (CNT). The CNT membranes are formed by releasing a free-standing film that consists cf parylene-infitrated CNTs, followed by CNT tuncapping on both sides of the composite material. Thus fabricated membranes show flexibility and ductility due to the parylene matrix ‘material, as well as high permeabilt attriouted to the embedded carbon nano tubes. ‘A research team at the Research School of Biology of the Australian National University has recently developed boron ritride nano tubes embedded in a silicon nitride membrane, which ate claimed to have improved ability to reject salts, heavy metals and other contaminants at very high ppermeabiliy and also to possess cation or anion selective abilities, Separation membranes based on carbon nano tubes and zeolite TFN membranes are also under development by the Australian Advanced Membrane Research Technologies for Water Treatment Research Cluster of scientific collaborators under the leadership of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industral Research Organization. This research team includes the University of Texas, Austin, ‘An ongoing research atthe University of Colorado ‘at Boulder also focuses on the development cof novel polymer membrane with sub-one nanometer pores specifically for desalination ‘applications. The TFN technology is one of the most promising means of making a quantum leap in RO membrane productivity increase and desalination cost reduction. While the quest to lower energy use continues, there are physical imitations to how low the energy demand could go using RO desalination. The main limiting factors are the osmotic pressure that would need to be overcome to separate the salis from the seawater and the amount of water that could be recovered from a cubic meter of seawater before the membrane -epaation process is hindered by salt scaling on the membrane surface and the service systems. ‘Therefore, research simed at futher reduction of energy use fr seawater desalination also focuses ‘on the development on non-everse osmosis based desalination technologies such as: forward ‘osmosis, membrane dstilation and capacitive ionization. Each ofthese technologies has its challenges a ther present sage of development However, they do hold the potent to lower the ‘overall energy for production of desalinated water {rom seawater and/or brackish water sources, ‘Summary Over the past decade seawater desalination hag experienced an accelerated gronth civen advances in membrane technology and mater science. While conventional technologies, sx as sedimentation and filtration have seen modes advancement since their nal use for pot water treatment several centuries ago, more eficient seawater desalination membra and membrane technologies, and equome improvements are released every several years, Recent technological advancements such pressurexchanger based energy recove systems, higher efficiency RO membra elements, nanostructured RO membranes, a innovative membrane vessel configurations, a projected to futher decrease the energy nee for seawater desalination. The steady tren of reduction of desalinated water product energy and costs coupled with increasing c of conventional water treatment and water driven by more stringent regulatory requirement are expected to accelerate the current tn of reliance on the ocean as an attractive a Competitive water source. This rend is forecast to continue in the future and to further estab ‘ocean water desalination as reliable droug proof alternative for many coastal communit worldwide. About the Author Nikolay Voutchkoy isa genera cirectr of ‘Water Globe Consulting, LC headquartered in Winter Springs, Flrda, USA and has cover 25 years of experience in the Feld of desalination and water reuse. Water Globe Consulting is a professional engineering company specialized in providing independent exper services in the fed of ‘seawater desalination and water reuse. o tnow more about the author, you can write to us. Your feedback is welcome and should be sent at mayur@eawatercom, Published letiers in each issue will get a oneyear complimentary subseription of EvenytingAboutWater Magazine.