Nicholas Milne

Chemistry of silica scale mitigation for RO desalination with particular reference to remote operations

Silica scaling in reverse osmosis of groundwater is a significant issue in water stressed areas due to the limitations that scaling imposes on water recovery. While calcium and magnesium scaling potential can be significantly reduced by the use of ion exchange or other softening processes, the silica scaling potential typically remains. Improving the recovery of reverse osmosis by limiting the potential for silica scale is important in ensuring maximum water recovery. This is particularly important for mining and natural gas industries that are located in remote regions. The remote nature of these sites imposes three major restrictions on the silica scale mitigation process. Firstly, the generation of poorly dewaterable sludges must be avoided. Also, the quality of any reverse osmosis (RO) permeate must be able to meet the end use requirements, particularly for boilers. Finally, silica removal should not impact upon other potentially useful or valuable components within the brine, and should not make the disposal of the unusable waste brine components more difficult. Reduction of scaling potential can be achieved in three main ways: operating RO at high pH after hardness has been removed, operating at low pH, and reducing the silica concentration either in pretreatment or by using an interstage technique. Operating at high pH has the initial requirement of hardness removal to prevent scaling and this could be an issue on some sites. Hardness removal operations that use ion exchange resins may be challenged by water chemistry and the operational costs associated with high chemical regeneration costs. Operating at low pH may be more desirable than high pH operation as this can help to reduce the risk of scale formation from calcium or magnesium salts. The drawback comes from the cost of acid, particularly for high-alkalinity waters. There are numerous silica removal techniques including chemical dosing of lime, or aluminium or iron salts, electrocoagulation, adsorption, ion exchange and seeded precipitation. Of these, adsorption onto aluminium compounds appears to give the best results and have received the most attention where restrictions on sludge production and brine disposal common to operations in remote locations are in place. Adsorption onto iron compounds appears to occur more quickly, but leads to the formation of a hard, glass-like scale that may be more difficult to remove, making this process unattractive from the point of view of sorbent regeneration.

Demonstration of membrane distillation on textile waste water: assessment of long term performance, membrane cleaning and waste heat integration

This work reports outcomes of a pilot trial and practical assessment of direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) towards achieving zero liquid discharge at a textile manufacturing plant. Treatment of textile wastewater is difficult due primarily to the complexity of textile processing and the wastewater produced. Combined effluent from the site, either untreated or treated with the sites existing flocculation and biological processes, were considered as the feeds to the MD testing. Initial bench scale studies found rapid membrane wetting appeared to be avoided by the novel use of foam fractionation on the untreated effluent, or by using the conventionally treated effluent. The trial was conducted on treated effluent using fractionation on a side stream within the MD process, and no wetting was observed over the entire 3 month trial duration. The flux of the 6.4 m2 membrane module started at 5 L m−2 h−1 and declined to 2 L m−2 h−1 after more than 65 days. Caustic cleaning effectively restored flux to 4 L m−2 h−1. A 41-fold increase in feed concentration was verified by sulphate measurements, increasing from 567 mg L−1 to 23 000 mg L−1. After concentrating in the hot cycle, all ammonia entering the DCMD plant from the feedwater was found to evolve into the permeate, but non-volatile sulphate rejection was >99.9%. Water recovery at the end of the trial was 91.6%. A plant integration assessment found that zero liquid discharge would be feasible if saline waste streams were isolated and reverse osmosis processes were coupled with MD harnessing waste heat. MD application to current and future treatment scenarios with waste heat integration to textile processing appears viable.

Recovery of water and acid from leach solutions using direct contact membrane distillation

This paper describes for the first time the use of direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) for acid and water recovery from a real leach solution generated by a hydrometallurgical plant. The leach solutions considered contained H2SO4 or HCl. In all tests the temperature of the feed solution was kept at 60 °C. The test work showed that fluxes were within the range of 18-33 kg/m(2)/h and 15-35 kg/m(2)/h for the H2SO4 and HCl systems, respectively. In the H2SO4 leach system, the final concentration of free acid in the sample solution increased on the concentrate side of the DCMD system from 1.04 M up to 4.60 M. The sulfate separation efficiency was over 99.9% and overall water recovery exceeded 80%. In the HCl leach system, HCl vapour passed through the membrane from the feed side to the permeate. The concentration of HCl captured in the permeate was about 1.10 M leaving behind only 0.41 M in the feed from the initial concentration of 2.13 M. In all the experiments, salt rejection was >99.9%. DCMD is clearly viable for high recovery of high quality water and concentrated H2SO4 from spent sulfuric acid leach solution where solvent extraction could then be applied to recover the sulfuric acid and metals. While HCl can be recovered for reuse using only DCMD.

Membrane distillation of meat industry effluent with hydrophilic polyurethane coated polytetrafluoroethylene membranes

Meat rendering operations produce stick water waste which is rich in proteins, fats, and minerals. Membrane distillation (MD) may further recover water and valuable solids, but hydrophobic membranes are contaminated by the fats. Here, commercial hydrophobic polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) membranes with a hydrophilic polyurethane surface layer (PU-PTFE) are used for the first time for direct contact MD (DCMD) on real poultry, fish, and bovine stick waters. Metal membrane microfiltration (MMF) was also used to capture fats prior to MD. Although the standard hydrophobic PTFE membranes failed rapidly, PU-PTFE membranes effectively processed all stick water samples to colourless permeate with sodium rejections >99%. Initial clean solution fluxes 5–6 L/m2/h declined to less than half during short 40% water recovery tests for all stick water samples. Fish stick water uniquely showed reduced fouling and up to 78% water recovery. Lost flux was easily restored by rinsing the membrane with clean water. MMF prior to MD removed 92% of fats, facilitating superior MD performance. Differences in fouling between stick waters were attributed to temperature polarisation from higher melt temperature fats and relative proportions to proteins. Hydrophilic coated MD membranes are applicable to stick water processing but further studies should consider membrane cleaning and longer-term stability.

Membrane distillation trial on textile wastewater containing surfactants using hydrophobic and hydrophilic-coated Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) membranes

Treating wastewater from textile plants using membrane distillation (MD) has great potential due to the high-salinity wastes and availability of waste heat. However, textile wastewaters also contain surfactants, which compromise the essential hydrophobic feature of the membrane, causing membrane wetting. To address this wetting issue, a custom-made membrane consisting of a hydrophilic layer coated on hydrophobic polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) was tested on textile wastewater in a pilot MD setup, and compared with a conventional hydrophobic PTFE membrane. The test was carried out with a feed temperature of 60 °C, and a permeate temperature of 45 °C. The overall salt rejection of both membranes was very high, at 99%. However, the hydrophobic membrane showed rising permeate electrical conductivity, which was attributed to wetting of the membrane. Meanwhile, the hydrophilic-coated membrane showed continually declining electrical conductivity demonstrating an intact membrane that resisted wetting from the surfactants. Despite this positive result, the coated membrane did not survive a simple sodium hydroxide clean, which would be typically applied to a membrane process. This brief study showed the viability of membrane distillation membranes on real textile wastewaters containing surfactants using hydrophilic-coated hydrophobic PTFE, but the cleaning process required for membranes needs optimization.