The Selection of UF as Pretreatment for Seawater Desalination

The focus of this paper is the performance of an ultrafiltration pretreatment system, for a power plant located in the Northern part of China. The power plant has limited water resources so they are able to divert sea water for use as a raw water source. The raw water quality posted a challenging condition for the desalination treatment. The sea water is very high in turbidity and the turbidity fluctuates greatly with wind and tides. The paper discusses the performance of the ultrafiltration pretreatment system, primarily in terms of turbidity and SDI performance, and the pretreatment system to accommodate variations in seawater quality and to improve the performance of SWRO membrane.