Reverse Osmosis Plant Technology – Best Practices

If you want to get fully up to speed on RO and NF technologies in a very short time, this comprehensive, yet compact course is just right for you.

After participating in this course, you will be able to:

• Understand the science behind reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) technology for the preparation of a variety of grades of high-purity water from a saline water source (river, inland lake, well, etc.); (note: seawater desalination, although discussed, is not the focus of this course)
• Interpret raw water analyses and understand which type of feedwaters are more prone to problems and why
• Understand the impact of pre-treatment systems upstream of your RO plant, and improve operations of the RO/NF system
• Know what to “look for” in a system design from an equipment manufacturer (OEM). This can often save you on capital and operating costs (better design, less maintenance and downtime)
  • Draft a basic design (plant size, configuration, cleaning-in-place, etc.) to enable you to prepare adequate bid specs BEFORE you purchase the WRONG plant
• Monitor key performance indicators and data trends to improve operations of your RO/NF plant
• Predict fouling conditions before they bring down your plant or downstream process, costing you production losses and costly premature membrane replacements
• Troubleshoot RO systems and associated pre-treatment units to debottleneck operations
• Implement a successful chemical-cleaning regimen to maintain production and maximize membrane life (for example, evaluate generic vs. more expensive proprietary cleaners)
• Hold meaningful discussions with your water treatment chemical vendor to save on chemical cleaning costs
• Evaluate new membrane element purchases, and potentially inflatable OEM claims of “foulant resistant” membranes
• Predict the impact of installing a RO system upstream of a ion-exchange demineralization plant
• Determine whether replacing your current ion exchange (e.g. zeolite softener) with a RO system will cut your overall water treatment costs
• Determine the best RELATIVE position of RO and sodium softener in a plant configuration – this may save you operation & maintenance pains and costs

Course Outline: 

• Understand how RO/NF membranes and their systems work
• Learn to interpret a raw water analysis, crucial to operating your RO/NF system efficiently
• Learn about the key pre-treatment systems upstream of RO/NF plants
• Fundamentals of RO/NF system design to enable smart choices when buying a new system or optimizing one already in operation
• How to monitor RO/NF systems and upstream pre-treatment unit operations
• Learn how to troubleshoot a wide range of problems in RO/NF plants
• Learn about different chemical-based and mechanically enhanced cleaning-in-place (CIP) strategies
• Evaluate the optimum position of RO systems in the overall plant configuration (vs. other unit operations such as ion-exchange or electrodionization (EDI)
• Review of case studies in industry 

Who Should Attend:

• Utility Engineers
• Plant Engineers
• Operation Managers
• Maintenance Managers
• Maintenance Engineers
• Technologists/technicians
• Project Managers in the Chemical, Petrochemical, Chemical Processing and other industries
• Reliability Engineers
• Stationary Engineers / Plant Operators
• Risk Management Staff
• Anyone involved in Plant Asset Management
• Operating personnel or anyone requiring a working level knowledge of the theory and practice of reverse osmosis and nanofiltration systems
• This course will be of particular interest to anyone involved in the operation and maintenance of reverse osmosis or nanofiltration systems

 Requirements: Registrants are requested to bring a calculator to the online classes.