Author : Khalid Hassan Khalil, Farouk M. Wali and Abdulaziz M. El-Dosari

The operational performance of a reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant in Howtat Bani Tamim city 190 kms south of Riyadh Saudi Arabia was evaluated. The plant was monitored for a period of 40 months starting from January 2011 and ending in April 2014 and the raw water supply was obtained from six well. All operational parameters were measured and discussed. The raw water was initially treated for total solids (TS) and iron removal to reduce membrane fouling and the feed water was injected into two sets of RO membranes both operating as a two stage one pass system. Each set consists of 36 vessels in the first stage and 18 vessels in the second stage and both stages have 7 membranes in each vessel. The overall product output of the plant is 26282 m3/day with an average total solids (TDS) content of 500 mg/lit after blending the permeate water with feed water. The TDS concentration of the feed water was 2000 mg/lit and the permeate water was 28.79 mg/lit yielding a percentage removal of 98.56%. The overall efficiency of the plant with regards flow capacity was about 87.68%. The rejected water with an average flow of 3529.4 m3/day and TDS values of 13170.40 mg/lit was disposed in evaporation tanks.

Keywords: Desalination, reverse osmosis, total dissolved solids, total solids, feed water, permeate, pre-treatment, silt density index, reject pressure, salt recovery.

Article published in International Journal of Current Engineering and Technology, Vol.5, No.6 (Dec-2015)