inge GmbH reports that its membrane technology has been adopted in numerous large-scale projects around the world.
There is a growing awareness of the importance of professional drinking water treatment and eco-friendly methods of wastewater reuse and recycling, the company says, and ultrafiltration (UF) has taken on an increasingly important role over the past 15-20 years in a broad range of water treatment applications.
As treatment plants get bigger, so do the challenges involved in building and running them. The quality and reliability of components has become a key factor, and comprehensive technical support from component suppliers has become a crucial part of successful plant engineering projects.
Accra, Ghana (Africa)
Huge quantities of drinking water are required for the metropolitan area of the Ghanaian capital Accra. To meet these needs, a seawater desalination plant was opened about two years ago in Nungua Township, some 12 km from Accra.
The plant uses reverse osmosis (RO) to produce 60,000 m3 of drinking water a day for around 500,000 people. Following a rigorous selection process, the plant contractor chose inge to equip the plant with 10 UF lines as a pretreatment stage for RO. As well as specifying UF technology, consulting expertise and engineering services at the planning stage, the client also requested an expanded package of services for this project. inge offered its high-performance ultrafiltration racks with its patented Multibore membrane fibres, as well as the central header pipes, valve units, local instrumentation and assembly of the UF lines.
Despite the fact that the quality of the feedwater turned out to be significantly lower than the figures stated in the tender, the UF system has been successfully supplying 135,000 m3 a day of pre-filtered water to the RO stage.
Putatan in the Philippines
Private water company Maynilad operates in the western part of the Manila metropolitan area in the Philippines, supplying drinking water to over nine million people. Maynilad runs three water treatment plants, one of which – situated in the Putatan barangay in the city of Muntinlupa – uses inge ultrafiltration technology.
The water is drawn from the Laguna Lake, which lies to the south-east of Manila and borders Muntinlupa. The lake water undergoes a rigorous filtration process before being used to supply 490,000 people with a total of 150 million liters of clean drinking water a day, 50 million liters of which is filtered by inge ultrafiltration technology.
Purifying the water poses significant challenges. As well as seasonal variations in water quality, the lake also becomes soiled by industries nearby. Despite the poor quality of the lake water, the inge ultrafiltration models have been running without a hitch for the past two years.
The follow-on project, which is due to be completed in 2018, is also based around inge modules.
Jamnagar in India
This project in the Indian city of Jamnagar was the biggest sea water desalination plant that ingehad ever equipped with its membrane technology. Built by the contractor IDE Technologies, the plant supplies process water to one of the world’s largest refinery complexes in Jamnagar, which is situated in the Indian state of Gujarat. inge supplied the UF modules used as a pretreatment stage for reverse osmosis (RO) in the seawater desalination process.
Over 4,000 T-Rack 3.0 modules went online in April 2017. Since then, they have been supplying 456 million liters of pre-cleaned water a day to the RO units. The UF pretreatment stage is said to improve the quality of the sea water that is treated using conventional pre-cleaning methods. The UF modules play a major role in protecting the sensitive reverse osmosis membranes.
Jazan in Saudi Arabia
This project involved a plant in the port city of Jazan in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, situated on the coast of the Red Sea. The UF membrane experts were selected by petroleum company Saudi Aramco to provide UF modules as a pretreatment stage for a sea water desalination plant. The inge modules are designed to deliver 105,000 m3 of filtered water a day to the reverse osmosis stage.
A further sea water desalination plant has already been commissioned in Jazan, which will deploy ingeUF technology as a pretreatment stage for RO. The new plant will be used to convert seawater into drinking water for Jazan Economic City, a recently established city 60 kim north-east of Jazan. The UF system will have an output of 168 MLD (44.4 MGD). The drinking water treatment plant is expected to be up and running by the end of 2018.
TUAS III – Singapore
The new seawater desalination plant TUAS III is currently under construction and is scheduled to come online by the end of 2017. inge GmbH is supplying the UF system to pretreat 289,000 m3 a day of pre-filtered water for the subsequent reverse osmosis stage.
This is the first seawater desalination plant in Singapore that will be run directly by the national water agency PUB.
