Anna Icart, Kurita Europe, Germany, overviews new
strategies for the control of biofouling in desalination plants.
A
lthough the economic crises in the late 2000s
slowed down the usage and construction of
desalination plants, the year 2019 was one of
the most dynamic of the last decade (Figure 1).
It is thought that this is just the starting point of a new
era of exponential growth for the desalination and water
reuse sector.
Water scarcity and increases in water demand in the
industrial and public sector have pushed an industry that
was quite stable for the last few years. When analysing
by region, it can clearly be observed that the Middle
East – especially the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
nations Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
the UAE – held the most significant share of the global
desalination market for drinking water purposes.
Meanwhile, Europe, which built up a lot of facilities
during the 2000s, is more focussed on keeping internal
and external regulatory aspects, cost breakdown,
competitive strategies and technologies.
Although multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect
distillation (MED) are used in several industries, the
technology driving growth is reverse osmosis (RO),
especially seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) which is
gaining territory for brackish and industrial water filtration.
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 Of course, membrane technology is not free of
challenges, especially if the technical difficulties are
combined with economic limitations. More and more
often, industries that use membranes in their facilities
are pushed to bring the systems to the limit of their
lifetimes, decreasing as much as possible the standard of
treatments. That is one of the main reasons why
continuous innovations and customer support is highly
desired and the key to plant success.
On this basis, during recent years, Kurita and Avista
(a Kurita company) have put in place several
Figure 1. Exponential growth of desalination usage,
challenges for reverse osmosis plants, biofouling effects.
Figure 2. Scheme of the laboratory project to determine the
deactivation time.
Figure 3. Treatment evolution on the field test.
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ENGINEERING
technologies to solve the new technical and economic
challenges and to support the desalination market.
Biofouling
As Figure 2 shows, one of the biggest challenges is
biofouling which damages the membranes and has a
negative impact on their efficiency and lifetimes.
Usually, non-oxidising biocides such as
chloromethylisothiazolinone (CIT-MIT) or
2,2-dibromo-3-nitrilopropionamide (DBNPA), as well as
oxidising biocides like sodium hypochlorite or
chloramines are utilised to control biofouling
problems. These biocides are quite effective in some
cases, but do not always provide the expected
results, especially in the difficult conditions that
desalination plants are frequently facing. Even when
these biocides are applied, it is still likely that
biofouling is gradually accumulated on the RO
membranes and the accumulated layer can only be
removed by an RO membrane cleaning procedure for
which RO system operation needs to be stopped.
On those grounds, Kurita developed an online
biofilm control technology which can deactivate
bacterial activity and reduce the adhesion of
microorganisms on RO membranes to achieve stable
operation of the complete RO system.
Kuriverter® IK-110 has proved its efficiency in brackish
water reverse osmosis (BWRO) and in seawater reverse
osmosis (SWRO) plants. The biggest advantage is its
capability to peel off biofouling material from the
membrane online as well as off-line. The technology
also has the following features:
n It peels off organic fouling gradually from the RO
membrane during operation.
n It does not damage the polyamide membranes.
n It inhibits biofouling throughout the whole RO
plant.
Typically, the biofilm agent is added to the raw
water tank in order to treat the complete RO system.
As a consequence, the entire system is protected
against biofouling by one product; the concept of
water treatment becomes simple and the risk of
membrane deterioration is almost zero. Further
desired effects are the reduction of
the system’s delta pressure, a
decrease of necessary pumping
energy and less necessary cleanings
in place (CIP).
The problem-solving ability of
IK-110 is based on the suppression of
the bacterial activity and
minimisation of microbes adhesion
on RO membranes surfaces, without
killing bacteria. Conventionally, two
online dosing strategies have been
applied: the continuous and the
long-term intermittent dosing.
However, it was observed that the
constant dosing could generate high

Figure 4. Short-term intermittent dosing strategy effectiveness.
Figure 5. Cost breakdown and percentage of improvement with new
treatment approaches.
chemical treatment cost – a clear criteria counteracting
the cost-effective approach of many desalination plants.
On the other hand, the long-term intermittent dosing
conditions made it difficult to control bacterial activity
due to bacterial reactivation from inactive states in such
long non-dosing periods. For this reason, it was not
recommended for systems with severe fouling problems.
Therefore, during the last two years, Kurita worked on a
new short-term intermittent dosing strategy for IK-110. In
this new approach, the dosage periods were intensified
but shortened to reduce chemical cost and to get better
and more effective control of bacterial activity.
This short-term intermittent dosing biofouling
mitigation mechanism was elaborated by proposed
laboratory batch tests, which helped to determine and
optimise the short-term intermittent dosing strategy for
the technology.
Laboratory batch tests
The proposed laboratory batch test mimicked IK-110
dosing and non-IK-110 dosing conditions by soaking
membrane samples with biofilm on its surface into IK-110
and phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution at different
times. The indicators of bacterial activity, such as
live/dead cell count, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and
protein, were closely monitored during the course of the
study. The trend of bacterial activity indicators allows the drinking water is scarce. Contaminants such as organic
effective ‘short-term’ dosing time for IK-110 and
‘short-term’ non-dosing time before bacterial reactivation
to be determined. The derived optimal short-term
intermittent dosing strategy
can delay the growth of
bacteria into mature biofilms
and control biofilm on the
membrane surface during its
early stage, leading to more
effective biofouling control for
RO systems.
Pilot test results
In 2018, Kurita Water Industries
opened its first R&D centre
outside of Japan in Singapore.
This centre was selected as the
site for the first large-scale
trials and, after the laboratory
batch tests, SWRO pilot
evaluation was conducted at
the test bedding site in Singapore (Figure 3).
The RO systems employed four elements
(4 in.) in series configurations operated with
ultrafiltration (UF) permeate as feed water.
The optimal short-term intermittent dosing
strategy derived from laboratory batch tests
was evaluated at this pilot scale operation
(Figure 4). In contrast to conventional
long-term intermittent dosing, the optimal
dosing strategy presented more stable delta
P and greatly reduced CIP frequency,
consequently decreasing the operation cost
for water production in SWRO system. It further proved
that the short-term intermittent dosing strategy is
effective for biofouling control. After the achievement
observed in the pilot plant, the new dosage method was
applied with success for customers in the Middle East.
To monitor and evaluate the changes on the IK-110
dosage, a monitoring system has been developed, the
S.sensing IK. The equipment allows the customer to
control the residual free chlorine and derivatives from
other treatments, detect sodium bisulfite (SBS) and
dosage if necessary, control antiscalant and – based on
the analysis of the results – appropriately dose the
agent.
The monitoring of the dosage can also be controlled
through a secure and private online tool, which is
custom-built for clients and their applications. This online
platform grants users access to the site data and
sharing/location information at anytime, anywhere. The
portal collects the data of S.sensing IK and the results of
the parameters fixed by the users, analysing the evolution
of the test and optimising the treatment in different
conditions.
RO systems in the oil and gas industry
RO is used extensively for potable water generation on
offshore oil rigs and other oil producing areas, where
molecules, calcium, magnesium and other metal cations
may lead to fouling in cooling towers and process
equipment.
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 In combination with nanofiltration, the RO systems
still use relatively compact membranes. It can be more
cost-effective than ion-exchange technologies or
concentrated brine waste disposal. Recovery of valuable
materials such as lithium also offers economic benefits.
Conventional separation processes often require
complex multi-step systems with higher energy and
chemical costs.
Conclusions
Although the desalination market increased its speed of
growth during 2019, the big breakthrough in the past year
has been on the cost of desalination, while the
challenges that always have been present in those
facilities remain. Biofouling is one of the most critical
issues for RO operation. An important factor is to reduce
the number of plant stops and cleanings without
increasing the chemical usage and treatment cost
(Figure 5). In order to meet the cost saving strategy of
the desalination industry while optimising the efficient
biofouling control, Kurita developed new technology
which has been applied successfully for years from a
continuous to a short-term intermittent dosed
application.
The introduced laboratory batch test further
optimised the dosing period and non-dosing period
based on the IK-110 biofouling mechanism to deactivate
bacteria on the membrane surface. The pilot scale
evaluation tests confirmed the optimal dosing strategy
to achieve more stable SWRO operation with less CIP
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frequency. Therefore, the application of this
short-term intermittent dosage can enhance the
biofouling control ability, reduce chemicals cost,
enlarge the membranes lifetime and reduce the CIP
quantity. The customer benefits from a cost-effective
treatment keeping the plants free of biofouling, even
during difficult periods.
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