Abstract
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are considered a major threat for seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants. The presence of HABs in the raw feed water can cause increase of chemical consumption within the desalination plant, increase membrane fouling rate and might lead to plant shutdown. The removal of Algal Organic Matters (AOMs) during the pretreatment will help in increasing the membrane lifetime, reduce operation cost and increase the plant reliability. In this study, the efficiency of liquid ferrate and ferric chloride during coagulation on the removal of AOMs was investigated. The liquid ferrate was generated in-situ by wet oxidation of ferric iron using hypochlorite in a caustic medium. Two seawater models were employed, the first one contains 10 mg c/L of sodium alginate and the second one contains also 10 mg c/L of Chaetoceros affinis algae (CA). During the advanced coagulation, liquid ferrate proved to be more effective in removing AOM than ferric chloride, with an overall DOC removal of 90%, enabling 100% algal removal and the inactivation of 99.99% of the microorganisms. The results presented in this study highlights the efficiency of liquid ferrate as seawater pretreatment during the HABs events.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1193-1200 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Science of The Total Environment |
| Volume | 685 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 19 2019 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledgements: The research reported in this paper was supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia. The authors acknowledge Zahid Ur. Rehman for his assistance with the algae cultivation. The authors acknowledge help, assistance and support from the Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) staff.