Western Australia's Water Corporation is on track to produce drinking water form a 45GL/a desalination plant located in Kwinana, 25km south of Perth. The plant is being built by proAlliance - a 50/50 joint venture between West Australian construction company Multiplex and French water treatment company Degremont. Degremont will operate the 140,000m3/d plant for 25 years under a public-private partnership with the West Australian government-owned Water Corporation. The construction cost is $387 million.

Read full article: 'Potable Water from Sea and Wind'

The sand screens and micron filters were selected because of the durable and corrosion resistant fiberglass and PVC construction. The specific model of Eden micron filters was chosen to maintain the filter element flux at approximately 3.3 gpm/per 10" equivalent.

Due to the relative remoteness of the installation site, multistage-centrifugal, high-pressure pumps have been selected for their reliability, availability of parts, economics of operation and easy maintenance. Centrifugal pumps in general are smoother, quieter, and require less ancillary equipment (i.e. pulsation dampeners) than positive displacement pumps. Hydropro has found that positive displacement pumps are much more prone to failure and lengthily downtimes than high-quality centrifugal pumps.

Read full article: 'SWRO Design and Energy Recovery Part 3: Major Component Selection'

Seven Seas Water received a production Pressure Exchanger for evaluation in conjunction with the ADA workshop held in St. Croix, USVI in October of 1998.
A paper dealing with the performance of the device was delivered by Mr. Leif J. Hauge, President of Energy Recovery Inc. at the workshop. Tours were conducted at the test facility where the Pressure Exchanger was in operation.

TESTING PARAMETERS
It was decide, in discussions with Mr. Hauge, to deviate from the standard system design and determine if the Pressure Exchanger could be used to increase the capacity of an existing plant by utilizing the available waste energy. The pressure boost pump would also be eliminated to further simplify installation and evaluation. The Exchanger would act as a stand-alone pump using only waste energy to operate a separate bank of membranes. The Exchanger would be supplied with a separate source of filtered seawater.

Read full article: 'Seven Seas Evaluates Cascade Expansion'