NAMS 2002 Workshop - ICOM 2008

Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis III - Applications – 2
Friday July 18, 10:15 AM-10:45 AM, Maui
Development and Testing of a High-Capacity, Mobile Desalination System
M. Miller (Speaker), U.S. Army TARDEC, Port Hueneme, California, USA -
mark.c.miller@navy.mil
M. Chapman, Bureau of Reclamation, Denver, Colorado, USA
C. Barley, NSF International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
M. Blumenstein, NSF International, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
B. Shalewitz, U.S. Army TARDEC, Port Hueneme, California, USA
In late 2002 a multidisciplinary team of U.S. military and government personnel
were enjoined in response to a congressional initiative to stimulate discovery and
invention in science and technology pertaining to water purification, and verify as
well as validate the utility of emerging state of the art science and technology in
water purification systems. The EUWP program was established to address two
principal objectives. The first was to fund research in the academic and
commercial sectors to further the state of desalination technology, while the
second was to develop a mobile, high-capacity desalination system intended to
showcase technological innovations that may have application for future military
water purification equipment. This presentation will address the development and
evaluation of the EUWP technology demonstrator.
The objective of the EUWP demonstrator is to develop a system that maximizes
production, yet achieves transportability requirements important to the military.
The primary design constraint for the equipment is that it be air transportable.
Achieving air transportability requires that the overall system weight and size be
minimized. This resulted in the incorporation of several technologies not used in
military water purification systems at the time, as well as a change in design
philosophy. Some examples include:
- Ultrafiltration with coagulant addition: Due to the mobile nature of the system
and feed water conditions that are expected to be encountered, the EUWP
utilizes ultrafiltration (UF) to be able to treat high turbidity water with minimal
footprint. In an effort to further reduce system size and weight, coagulant addition
is employed resulting in the ability to operate the UF system at higher flux rates
for extended periods of time. An additional benefit of UF is that the high quality
water provided can enable operating the reverse osmosis (RO) system at higher
flux and recovery rates. - Energy recovery: The incorporation of energy recovery
allows the system to produce more water with no additional power burden. In
addition, the size of the high-pressure pump and motor can be reduced resulting
in overall space and weight savings.