State of the reverse osmosis membrane of sea water corso plant desalination (Algiers)

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination is being increasingly emphasized as a strategy for conservation of limited resources of freshwater. Although desalination has been developed for the last few decades, the SWRO operation is still affected by membrane fouling. The membrane fouling of SWRO has a significant impact on operation of desalination plants. We follow the evolution of the permeate conductivity during three months of the sea water Corso (Algiers) plant desalination. The purpose of this work is to conduct an autopsy of fouled membranes in seawater using the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled by an analysis EDX. This membrane shows a change of the surface morphology, which justifies the abrupt increase in the conductivity of the permeate in May 2006. In order to identify the nature of the fouling deposit, we analysed this deposit by Xrays diffraction (XRD). (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved