PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF 3 DIFFERENT PRETREATMENT SYSTEMS FOR SEAWATER REVERSE-OSMOSIS TECHNIQUE

Reverse osmosis (RO) has been established as a reliable process for se awater desalination. The reliability of RO technique depends upon the extent of the pretreatment that must be designed to reduce the suspend ed and colloidal materials in the feed water. Three pretreatment syste ms were tested and evaluated at Doha Research Plant (DRP) in Kuwait. T he beachwell seawater intake and microfiltration systems have been ide ntified as promising techniques to replace the conventional pretreatme nt. This paper discusses the performance evaluation of the three teste d seawater pretreatment systems. Based on one year of actual operation al data, it was concluded that beachwell seawater intake, where it is possible to construct, is the most reliable source of feed water for ( RO) plant, followed by microfiltration system.