Reverse osmosis tightens grip on market

The ability to fit the technology into a shipping container has helped move desalination from being something that happened alongside city-scale power plants, to something that can be small enough to be mobile.  Acceptance of treated water has grown too.

Treated sewage effluent (TSE) is finding more uses, especially for industrial applications, such as district cooling and providing demineralised water for power operations. Some applications of RO technology even include providing feedstock water, which can then be used to produce drinking water for desert camps.

Utilities Middle East learns more about what RO technology can offer the region from a selection of experts…

Christian Wee is global business development director for Aqualyng. The company specialises in designing, manufacturing, installing and financing energy efficient desalination plants for production of fresh water and has three separate lines of business, which include, BOO, BOOT, water solutions and operations and maintenance. The company has recently been involved in the design build of an RO desalination plant for the Occidental Mokhaizna oil field development in South Oman, together with WJ Towell.

 How’s business?

Exciting. The market of turn-key plants and BOO’s may temporarily witness a drop globally. However, the mobile desalination market is growing rapidly and we see big opportunity for our Fast Water product range. Overall we are very optimistic about the future. 
 
 What technical or commercial advantage do you offer the market?

Aqualyng is the only supplier of turn-key desalination plants that has its own proprietary energy recovery device. Our patented solution, the Recuperator, has been installed in all Aqualyng plants since 1997.  
 
 What do you see as the most significant technical or commercial advance in reverse osmosis?

Aqualyng strongly believes that energy recovery has been the biggest step forward in RO technology in recent years. Our recuperator is a leading example of this technology and has been instrumental in making RO desalination technology more affordable from an operational perspective. Hence RO’s growth in recent years has been massive, particularly in the Middle East. 
 
 What do you see as the ‘next step’ in the advance of reverse osmosis?

Aqualyng has successfully secured our first large BOO project in Western Africa, in Ghana. I think this is the first of many BOO projects that will be developed in countries where desalination has earlier not been possible to execute.

This could be due to multiple reasons, including the ability to secure the payment to the developer, local acceptance of desalination etc. I see this changing – and think we will see many more BOO projects being developed in countries and regions where this has earlier not been possible.

Titia De Mes is a senior water engineer for Atkins. The company advises on the design of RO systems and the water sources that can be used. It also advises on the application of RO for secondary effluent, for use in district cooling and other industries. Current projects include troubleshooting for wastewater plants, consulting on offshore locations for sewage treatment works and building grey-water systems.

 How is business involving RO?

It is still going on, especially in Oman. Also in the UAE, if there is something built for water treatment, it is usually
reverse osmosis. 
 
 What technical advantages does Atkins offer the market?

The company knows all the systems and it has worked with them for years already. It has a good overview of what the best option is, how you can save energy and what is the best water resource you can use to save water.

 What are the most significant advantages in RO?

For wastewater treatment you can make tap water from wastewater, so that is the biggest advantage. Also for desalination, if you don’t have a heat source like waste heat, then it’s also more efficient for energy consumption.

 What do you think will be the next step in RO technology?

I think the price will go down because it is used a lot. There will be further reductions of electricity costs and further optimisation of membranes.

Mohanned Awad is business development manager and Arfan Huseino, area manager, for Corodex, a company that has been in the business of RO for the past 20 years. One of the largest plants it has worked on is a 15 000 litre3 for ADWEA, in Abu Dhabi. Other projects include a 30 000 m3 membrane bio-reactor project and a 50 000 m3 sequential factory in Abu Dhabi. In Oman it installed a 500 m3 system for an oil field application. It is also looking at a vacuum sewage project for Qatar Aluminium.

 How’s business?

MA: We are in wait and watch mode. We were one of those companies that were very conservative with our growth, we were quite selective with the projects we were taking. So we feel that for the time being things are under control. The current market conditions mean basic operational belt tightening procedures.

 What does Corodex offer the market technically and commercially?

MA: We offer local know how, we’ve been here for 30 years plus. Working in the Middle East is not something that someone can get up one day and just do. We are people who will see a technology that is being used in other parts of the world and adapt it to work in our part of the world. Ambient conditions here are different from anywhere else. Without the proper experience and technology application you could be asking for trouble.

 What is the most significant advance in RO technology recently?

AH: Lowering energy costs through energy recovering devices, plus the advance in the membranes as well.

RO is a very high-energy process, so if you bring the cost down, you reduce the carbon footprint, the ecological footprint, your fuel.

The biggest advantages have been with the energy recovery devices in the market. That’s why we are pushing to use the reverse osmosis plants in polishing TSE. When you polish it by RO you are getting a potable water specification.

Now we are using RO technology, not just to produce freshwater from seawater, we are using it on the treated effluent side. Instead of one dollar per cubic metre, all of a sudden you can produce potable water using .3 dollars per cubic metre. The power savings are humongous.

The government in Dubai has a law now, DEWA will not give potable water to district cooling plants, so they have told them to go and polish the TSE water by RO and then use it for cooling towers. This creates an enormous saving for DEWA, the country and the environment.

 What are Corodex’s top three goals?

MA: At the end of the day we are in the business of infrastructure, its not a glitzy business, but it’s not something you can pick up and take away, people need it.

The next 18 months our top three goals are watch the market, be proactive not reactive and to grow, ultimately we need to grow and bring in new business and new technology.

 What do you think will be the next step in RO technology?

MA: I think it will be widely adapted and used in TSE. I really think in the past few years we’ve seen it become readily accepted. In the next three to five years I think RO will cement its use in the tertiary side.

Khaled Ibrahim is RO sales leader for GE Water & Process Technologies’ MEA region. The company’s history in membrane desalination spans almost 60 years. Throughout this time, GE has developed a large base of installations with capacities up to 380 000 m3, which produce clean water using RO technology. In addition, GE has more than 25 years experience operating and maintaining plants that use advanced technologies to produce water at the lowest life-cycle cost. GE has been involved in several interesting projects in the region. The largest (200 000 m3) operating seawater RO desalination plant in North Africa involved GE in all three levels of the project (ie. finance, contracting, and operation). The project supplies 25% of the freshwater needs for its  area.

 How’s business?

Business is good in the RO market and for GE. RO technology continues to gain acceptance in the region.

 Historically, the region’s expanding demands for water were met with Independent Water & Power Projects (IWPP) or Engineering, Procurement & Construction (EPC) projects using thermal desalination technology.

Now, most countries in the region consider RO technology to play a major role in expanding their water requirements through a hybrid configuration of thermal and RO. Despite the impact of the current financial crisis on some projects, GE remains confident that the region will continue to meet the water and power requirements through the various governments’ stimulus supports.

 What technical or commercial advantage do you offer the market?

GE’s advantage comes from three primary sources. Expertise with various factors such as large train sizes, low power requirements and optimised configurations help GE offer our customers the lowest life-cycle cost for their RO plants.

When compared with conventional two-stage pretreatment technologies, GE offers superior pretreatment for RO plants. Our proprietary UF membrane technology provides improved pretreatment because it offers a physical barrier to suspended solids.

GE’s credit strength provides access to financing for all types of projects from small-scale all the way up to large-scale design, build, operate, IWPPs or Independent Water Projects (IWPs). Combined with financing access, GE’s longevity and financial stability assures customers that we’ll be here now and into the future.

 What do you see as the most significant technical or commercial advance in reverse osmosis?

While there are several significant technical advances for RO such as independence, modularity, reliability and operational flexibility, the most significant advance for RO is its independence.

For example, if you know the demand profile for your fresh water and power consumption, the points where your water demand does not drop as fast as your power demand (as in winter time in the Gulf region), an RO system offers the best fit for that profile.

It operates independently of your power consumption demand profile. For traditional desalination technologies to offer that same independence, it would require a much larger capital and operational cost, because you would need to install boilers to generate required steam and consequently burn more fuel.

RO also offers significant commercial advances. Lower capital and operational costs, combined with shorter construction periods, are the result of developments in pretreatment technologies, membranes and energy recovery systems. For example: the footprint for GE’s pretreatment UF membrane technology requires 25% less area than conventional pretreatment while consuming less power and offering better pretreatment results.

 What do you see as the ‘next step’ in the advance of reverse osmosis?

I see RO playing a larger role in meeting the desalination water needs for the region, at an even lower life-cycle cost. I also see RO increasingly used for wastewater reuse solutions. RO will soon play a larger role in industrial applications such as district cooling, utilising treated domestic sewage effluents as their raw water source.