Water. Desalination + reuse
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technology and in particular when microfiltration or ultrafiltration is being considered. Full-scale seawater plant Modern Water's first full-scale seawater plant (18 m3/d) was commissioned in Gibraltar in September 2008 at an AquaGib site (Figure 3), with water going into the public supply after extensive independent testing on 1 May 2009. This was followed by a much larger plant (100 m3/d) located at the Public Authority for Electricity & Water's site at Al Khaluf (Figure 4) in Oman in November 2009 2. In an open public tender for conventional RO, Modern Water was awarded a turnkey contract to build a 200 m3/d FO-based desalination plant at Al Najdah (Figure 5) again in Oman. Each of these plants has built upon the experience and development of the previous one, together with FO membrane development and work undertaken within the laboratory. coolIng tower MaKe-up Evaporative cooling uses very significant amounts of water and, with changes in environmental legislation, this method of cooling is likely to become even more widespread. Usually, this make-up water needs to be of high quality and, where there is an appropriate supply, this water has traditionally been supplied from rivers and mains water supplies, depending on the geographical location. Where these sources are not available, or not available in sufficient quantity, the cost of providing suitable make-up can be costly Figure 3. Gibraltar Plant Figure 4. Inside the process container at Al Khaluf | 32 | Desalination & Water Reuse | February-March 2013 both in energy and financial terms. This can prevent the installation of an evaporative cooling system in a particular location. Make-up water has also been provided directly as seawater and more recently treated sewage effluent. In the Middle East region, water for evaporative cooling has mainly been supplied using desalinated water, with the occasional use of seawater when the infrastructure and physical location of the site were suitable. As the wastewater infrastructure has developed and with the ever increasing demands on desalinated water, treated sewage effluent has become one of the favoured sources for make-up water. This is particularly prevalent in the district-cooling sector, where for instance in Dubai (Executive Council of Dubai, 2008) and Abu Dhabi, legislative changes prohibit the use of mains-supplied water for new installations. It is in this climate, with increasing demands on our resources, that an FO-