Demineralization of brackish surface water by reverse osmosis: The first experience in Morocco

Abstract

Abstract Desalination technique is among the focused theme of the Moroccan kingdom’s universities. The implementation of reverse osmosis (RO) technology at the industrial level has proved that this RO technology delivers an affordable production of good water quality and quantity. The conception of mid-size to large RO (FILMTEC™ product) desalination plants are performed by means of reverse osmosis system analysis (ROSA) software. This study shed the light on how realistic the predictions are done by means of ROSA software to the real daily performance of the RO (FILMTEC™XLE440) membranes. The results obtained are then compared against the real industrial data collected from Khenifra desalination plant. This RO plant is designed to produce 36.290\u2009m3/d of drinking water at the horizon of the year 2030. The performances collected are the pressure, temperature, permeate flow and permeate conductivity. The brackish water RO desalination plant has operated successfully and showed a steady behavior from the second half of 2013. The data collected within around 400 days showed that the ROSA modeling prediction matches in a conservative way to the real performance data collected from the plant at about 97%.