What Do They Do?
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The purpose of a desalination plant is to convert sea water into drinking water. This is done by removing all of the bacteria, diseases and salt from the water so it is safe for drinking. With water shortage and unpredictable weather caused by environmental issues, desalination plants are becoming more and more common. They are often very large and can pump out usually between 150 and 200 billion litres per year! In fact, there is a desalination plant just 40km away from Mornington!
Step 1: Seawater Intake System
The role of the seawater intake system is to collect the water from its natural place and bring it into the desalination plant. There are many different methods that can be used to bring the water to the plant, including beach well intake, subsurface water intake and open sea water intake. This all depends on several factors, such as possible natural disasters, disruption in the area, water quality, geographical location and data on possible meteoroids.
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Step 2: Pre-Treatment
The purpose of the pre-treatment process is to remove all harmful and non-organic solids, sands, oils, clay and bacteria just to name a few. These matters are susceptible to foul the reverse osmosis membranes. A high quality pre-treatment process plays an extremely important role in the desalination plant to prevent the fouling of the reverse osmosis membranes. Most desalination plants choose to adopt this effective pre-treatment process, including multi-media and activated filters.
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Step 3: Seawater Reverse Osmosis System
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The reverse osmosis system uses a semi permeable membrane to remove all organic material, colloidal substances and bacteria from the water, therefore creating 'desalinated' fresh water. This semi-permeable membrane separates the water and the salt content. Water would permeate the salt solution side under the pressure of osmosis. If a certain pressure greater than osmotic pressure is applied to the salt solution, water would permeate in the opposite direction. This is called reverse osmosis, and is a main part of the desalination process.
Step 4: Energy Recovery
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The function of this step is to cut back on the costs of energy and its use by recycling the pressure used in the reverse osmosis. These energy saving methods have been proven to be some of the most efficient in our modern society. It has been proven that this device can cut the energy consumption of a desalination plant by up to 60%. This energy saving can also result in monetary savings for the consumer, because of the lesser production cost- it is also better for the environment.
Step 5: Chemical Dosing System
The chemical dosing is an extremely important part of the purification process. Each of the devices used for dosing consists of a chemical tank, a dosing pump and dosing pipes. All dosing devices are well designed and installed for reliable and easy operation, supervision, cleaning and maintenance. Desalination plants really have the environment in mind, and cutting down costs for the end consumer.
Step 6: CIP Cleaning System
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With the constant new and improved designs for the reverse osmosis, there's no need for repeated cleaning of the membrane element. Even though the pre-treatment phase may be near perfection, there will still be various pollutants such as bacteria looming around at the surface of the membrane to some severity in long term processes. This could possibly degrade the performance of the membrane and effect pressure differences between the inlet and the outlet. Chemical cleaning and disinfection are regularly implemented. This chemical cleaning removes dirt and other pollutants from the surface of the reverse osmosis membrane.
Step 7: PLC Controlling System
The innovative programmable logic controller (PLC) is in place to remotely monitor meters, performance and system performance, it also enables the notification of the users regarding any and all system faults and maintenance requests and needs. This is the final step in the desalination process.