Algal Blooms and Membrane Based Desalination Technology

CRC Press

Algal Blooms and Membrane Based Desalination TechnologyAuthor(s): Loreen Ople Villacorte\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd, United Kingdom\nImprint: CRC Press\nISBN-13: 9781138026261, 978-1138026261\nSynopsis\nSeawater desalination is rapidly growing in terms of installed capacity (~80 million m3/day in 2013), plant size and global application. An emerging threat to this technology is the seasonal proliferation of microscopic algae in seawater known as algal blooms. Such blooms have caused operational problems in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants due to clogging and poor effluent quality of the pre-treatment system which eventually forced the shutdown of the plant to avoid irreversible fouling of downstream SWRO membranes. As more extra large SWRO plants (>500,000 m3/day) are expected to be constructed in the coming years, frequent chemical cleaning (>1/year) of SWRO installations will not be feasible, and more reliable pre-treatment system will be re.