Open AccessMonitoring Seasonal Variation in Important Physio-Chemical Parameters of Arabian Seawater at Karachi Used for Feeding SWRO
Author(s) -
Muhammad Asif,
Rafia Azmat,
Ailyan Saleem
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
asian journal of chemistry/asian journal of chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.145
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 0975-427X
pISSN - 0970-7077
DOI - 10.14233/ajchem.2020.22714
Subject(s) - seawater , turbidity , total dissolved solids , chemistry , total suspended solids , desalination , suspended solids , environmental chemistry , reverse osmosis , environmental engineering , environmental science , membrane , oceanography , wastewater , geology , biochemistry , chemical oxygen demand
This study reports the analysis of various parameters of seawater upto 3 years used for feeding to seawater desalination (SWRO) plant atFrench Beach, Arabian sea, Karachi city, Pakistan. The work highlights the monitoring of essential parameters of seawater intake toreverse osmosis plant for pre-treatment loop designing and optimizing the operational cost. The study was planned as limited data wasavailable internationally from this region, which includes pH, turbidity, temperature, total dissolved solids (TDS) and total suspendedsolids (TSS) allied with seasonal variations before pretreatment and after getting permeate. The water production capacity of SWRO plantis 100,000 gallon per day having Filmtech polyamide membrane and equipped with energy recovery turbine. It was observed in the periodsince 2015 to 2017, the monitoring of intake samples i.e. pH, turbidity and temperature showed variation in the range of 7.9-8.1, 8-34NTU and 21-29 ºC, respectively. The observed value of TDS and TSS of seawater were 38.0-39.5 g/L and 18-48 mg/L, respectively. Theconcentrations of soft metals in seawater were found to be in order of Na > Mg > Ca > K while major anions were Cl− >SO42−. The TDSand pH of permeate water found to be in the range of 150-500 mg/L and 6.0-7.5 respectively, while other parameters were within WHO limit.