Water Treatment, Desalination and Reverse Osmosis

The largest desalination plant in the CIS was built with the use of the original membrane desalination technology to provide Aktau citizens with drinking water taken from the Caspian Sea. The modern achievements in the field of filtration, boron removal from water and desalinated permeate conditioning are used in the plant.

Capacity 20 000 m³ / day => Modernization up to 40 000 m³ /day 

Peculiarities of technology:

• Boron removal up to 95% using two-stage reverse osmosis desalination technology;

• Medium pressure membranes allow to significantly reduce energy consumption;

• Opportunity to turn off the 2^d stage of desalination process in winter in order to reduce expenses.

Technical buildings in the Baikonur Cosmodrome are located in different parts of the launch site territory at a considerable distance from centralized sources of water supply. Because of this, price for supplied water is high and water quality is poor. Therefore, works on the development of autonomous water supply systems have being conducted with the use of desalination technologies for artesian brackish waters, which are everywhere found in the territory of the Baikonur Cosmodrome.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

Autonomous water supply station at area 2g

Two stage reverse osmosis desalination of brackish artesian water. The first station with the capacity of 200 m³/day was put into service in December 1999. Thanks to service maintenance and equipment modernization implemented in time, the station capacity was increased up to 400 m³/day.

Drinking water station of improved quality for the Cosmonaut Hotel (area 17)

The station capacity is 5 m³/h that is at least 80% of the initial water consumption by station.

Modernization and expansion of deionized water production for the car painting workshop at the Avtotor enterprise. The enterprise located in the Kaliningrad region is one of the leaders on the car market and it produces BMW and KIA models.

In 2013, Keldysh Research Center upgraded the technology and increased    deionized water production for KIA car bodies painting workshop:

• Pre-filtration and micro filtration modules (operated since 2002) replacement of deionized water treatment station with the capacity of 10 m³/h;

• New deionized water treatment station was put into service with the capacity of 12 m³/h with new generation membrane elements. The guaranteed production of deionized water with electrical conductivity is < 10 µS /cm and pH 5.5-7.5.

 New pre-filtration and microfiltration modules:

• Automated flushing control system;

• Easy cartridge filter elements replacement;

• High corrosive resistance of materials;

• Extended filter cycle.

There are strict requirements for total salinity and other chemical components in water to be used in electrolysis stations at a petroleum refinery intended for hydrogen production.

For this reason, a classic water treatment technology is performed with post-treatment of a reverse osmosis permeate using ion-exchange filters (cations and anions). Therefore, total salinity is reduced up to <2 mg/l. 

Microfiltration elements ЕМЕ are originally developed by Keldysh Research Center for makeup river water purification in the recycling water supply system at LLC “NPP Neftekhimiya”. Roll-type filter elements are manufactured on the basis of a microfiltration track etched membrane made of polyethylene terephthalate with hole nominal diameters of 0.2 µm, 0.6 µm and 1µm. While elements development, the main tasks were to significantly reduce the turbidity of produced water (less than 0.1 NTU), and to increase operational lifetime of the elements.

Original layout of stations with a concentrate circulation provides with a high tangent velocity of a purified water flow. Thanks to the reduction of sediments formation on the membrane surface, the elements work much longer.

Mine water treatment technology used in the Republic of South Africa provides a high-quality drinking water that complies with strict world requirements. The technology also allows getting a certain amount of chemical products such as sodium sulfate, ferruginous sediment and others from brackish water. That makes it possible to significantly reduce concentrate discharge into the environment and it increases economic effectiveness of the project. 

Used drilling fluids from the petroleum industry contain many contaminants that are highly hazardous for the environment. That is why it is dangerous to discharge them into natural water basins or to re-use them in the technological process.

The specialists of Keldysh Research Center developed a complex technology for the drilling mud treatment to perform the tasks such as:

• considerable reduction of areas intended for waste disposal;

• purification of liquid that should meet the requirements to water discharged into fishery water basins;

• concentrating of emitted pollutants up to 90 %;

• economical efficiency increase of treatment process.