The power plant, located in the center-east India, had a requirement of a water treatment system to recycle the plant’s cooling tower blowdown water containing high colloidal silica and turbidity. Ultrafiltration was selected as the pretreatment of choice to the Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant, to provide consistent product water with low silt density index (SDI) to safeguard the downstream RO unit from colloidal fouling.
The higher design flux rate, as well as the patented Cloud Point Precipitation process persuaded the client in favour of Q-SEP® hollow fiber UF membranes. With a higher flux rate of 65 l/m2/h, QUA was able to offer lesser number of modules compared to other manufacturers, saving on capex for the client.QUA provided exceptional pre-sales engineering support to the integrated system supplier in designing the UF system, which ensured efficient and successful installation at site and subsequent commissioning and performance. Q-SEP modules successfully met the plant’s requirements because of their low fouling characteristics, uniform pore size distribution and large surface area which provided high operating efficiency and reliable operation.
The Q-SEP system, comprising of two trains of 28 modules each, has been operational since February 2018. It has been performing uninterrupted and satisfactorily and is able to provide a consistent permeate output of 100m3/hr in each train. The Trans-membrane pressure (TMP) has been consistently below 1 bar. Chemical Enhanced Backwash (CEB) is done once a day. The output SDI is consistently below 3 since startup.
The client has gone on record to recognize Q-SEP performance and has issued a performance certificate to that effect.
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