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Application Taking The Guesswork Out Of RO System Design Engineers at CH2M HILL have developed a tool to evaluate energy-recovery devices (ERDs), enabling wise decision-making and lowercost reverse osmosis (RO) desalination. By Steve Alt, Jim Lozier, and Tyler Nading D id you know energy consumption accounts for the design and single interface makes it easy for users to input largest part of a desalination plant's total operatbasic RO system parameters as well as select the ERDs ing costs? As a result, desalination plants look to plant designers would like to consider in their analysis. The enermodel incorgy-recovery porates standevices (ERDs) dard municipal to cut back on requirements operating costs and ERD prodby reusing uct information energy from the into a comprereverse osmosis hensive, easy-to(RO) process. use tool. However, with Historically, numerous ERDs engineers, plant available on designers, and the commercial operating staff market, such as spend hours energy- recovor even days ering turbines Figure 1: The input page allows users to make ERD comparisons based on system design and specifications. evaluating the or pressurecost and perforexchanging mance specs of technologies, it can be a time-consuming and tedious ERDs. ERD suppliers often provide information on perprocess to determine which, if any, ERD is best suited to formance and life-cycle costs for each product; however, meet the needs of an existing or new plant. with the projection tool, the analysis is streamlined and As part of a WateReuse Research Foundation study, includes an estimate of the installed capital cost. The tool CH2M HILL designed and engineered a new desalinamakes it simple to compare and contrast options availtion tool to assess ERDs and their use in RO systems. able in the commercial market, reducing analysis time to By integrating mass-balance RO projection software with approximately 30 minutes for numerous ERDs. energy-recovery calculations and life-cycle estimates, the tool makes it easier for engineers and plant operators to Wide Water Source Use identify whether adding an ERD to the RO system would ERDs can play a fundamental role in minimizing the result in a reduction in the cost of desalting water with an operating costs of desalination plants, and selecting the acceptable payback period. proper ERD can save millions of dollars in operational If you are wondering how the tool works or why it and capital expenses over the life of the plant. The tool would be beneficial, here is a quick overview of how this considers not only which ERD would be best for the technology is used to save time, address ways for desaliplant, but it also gives the user the option to run the nation plants to reduce energy consumption, and save comparison when no ERD is included. substantial operating costs. The tool can be used to evaluate the applicability treatment for the full range of impaired water supplies, including seawater, brackish ground and surface waters, User-Friendly Interface Leads To Faster Analysis and wastewater. The tool is built as an Excel-based model. The intuitive 12 wateronline.com ■ Water Online The Magazine