Seawater, process water treatment in Abu Dhabi

Water from the Arabian Gulf is generally seen as achallenging prospect, with problems of high turbidity and organic and bacteriological contents coming to the fore in summer and creating majorchallenges for water treatment facilities. The algae bloom known as thered tide is a further phenomenon that has been causing a headache on the coasts of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. All in all, any ultrafiltration systems used in these regions are dependent upon a high-performance, extremely resilient membrane with excellent anti-fouling properties thatis capable of properly dealing with the water's organic content. The modules supplied by inge watertechnologies AG have proved more than capable of meeting these requirements ever since they came online in January 2009, and the German-made dizzer® modules have now been chosen for the project designed to expand the water treatment plant's capacity.

Membraneresilience is a key criterion
Making sure that the membrane you choose is highly resilient is a crucial factor -- especially when it comes to a major project involving the treatment of 80,000 m" of water aday. That is why the Italian plant construction firm Bernardinello Engineering S.p.A. chose to use the patented Multibore membrane from theacclaimed technology leader inge watertechnologies AG when they built the water treatment facility for a steel works run by Emirates Steel Industries in Mussafah, the industrial quarter of Abu Dhabi. The projectto expand the plant will now see a total of 574 dizzer® 5000 plus modules -- each featuring a 50m" membrane surface area -- coming online from 2011 onwards in a layout of seven racks. The job of these modules is to pretreat the seawater to prepare it for reverse osmosis. The treated water is required for the steel production process. The UF facility is also used to treat the 'blowdown water' from the steel works' cooling towers.

Ralf Krüger, the sales manager responsible for this project at inge watertechnologies AG, sums up what is required:"The mixture of seawater and process water in the treatment facility makes this project particularly challenging. Approximately 10 percent ofthe feedwater comes from the production process. The specific requirements stipulated for this facility included achieving SDI values below two -- even though the raw water often has an SDI value in excess of 15. Fortunately the technology we supply is capable of reliably ensuring that kind of performance over the long term."

As the CEO of inge watertechnologies Bruno Steis notes, the fact that inge watertechnologies offers a five-year warranty against membrane fiber breakage shows that the company's quality claims are not just an empty promise. He adds: "More than 500 plants around the globe are equipped with our patented, German-made technology. Our ultrafiltration systems have been working perfectly for more than seven years, and we have neverhad a single case of fiber breakage."