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Precipitation softening: a pretreatment process for seawater desalination

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Abstract

Reduction of membrane fouling in reverse osmosis systems and elimination of scaling of heat transfer surfaces in thermal plants are a major challenge in the desalination of seawater. Precipitation softening has the potential of eliminating the major fouling and scaling species in seawater desalination plants, thus allowing thermal plants to operate at higher top brine temperatures and membrane plants to operate at a reduced risk of fouling, leading to lower desalinated water costs. This work evaluated the use of precipitation softening as a pretreatment step for seawater desalination. The effectiveness of the process in removing several scale-inducing materials such as calcium, magnesium, silica, and boron was investigated under variable conditions of temperature and pH. The treatment process was also applied to seawater spiked with other known fouling species such as iron and bacteria to determine the efficiency of removal. The results of this work show that precipitation softening at a pH of 11 leads to complete elimination of calcium, silica, and bacteria; to very high removal efficiencies of magnesium and iron (99.6 and 99.2 %, respectively); and to a reasonably good removal efficiency of boron (61 %).

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Acknowledgment

The authors acknowledge the Environmental Engineering Research Center at the American University of Beirut for providing their facilities to conduct the research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

    George M. Ayoub & Ramez M. Zayyat

  2. Chemical Engineering Program, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

    Mahmoud Al-Hindi

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  1. George M. Ayoub
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  2. Ramez M. Zayyat
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  3. Mahmoud Al-Hindi
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Correspondence to George M. Ayoub.

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Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues

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Ayoub, G.M., Zayyat, R.M. & Al-Hindi, M. Precipitation softening: a pretreatment process for seawater desalination. Environ Sci Pollut Res 21, 2876–2887 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2237-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-013-2237-1

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