Reverse Osmosis Pretreatment: Removal of Iron in Groundwater Desalination Plant in Shupramant-Giza – A Case Study

Reverse osmosis (RO) is being increasingly utilized throughout the world for desalination due to the latest improvements in RO membrane performance and its reduced cost compared to thermal desalination. In this paper, Different media and chemicals have been used for Iron removal to prevent membrane fouling of groundwater reverse osmosis plant located in Shupramant-Giza. The objective is to present field results of the reverse osmosis plant operation in order to evaluate the reliability of this technology. The operating pressure and pressure drop increased significantly without an increase in the production capacity. Frequent shutdowns of the plant were observed due to severe membrane fouling. The membrane was cleaned with different chemical solutions to dissolve the deposits from the membrane surface. To achieve high cleaning efficiency, the flow rate of desalinated water and total dissolved salts (TDS) were studied.