Inquiry: forward osmosis elements needed for an FO/RO wastewater pilot plant

forward osmosis spiral wound module

Commercial suppliers needed to provide FO modules for an FO pilot system

Recently we received an inquiry from David (product engineer at PRODINTEC) who is on the lookout for FO modules to complete an FO/RO wastewater pilot plant. If you’re a commercial supplier of FO modules please feel free to get in touch with David via the comment fields below.

Dear Sirs,

My name is David Cereijo and I work in Engineering Department of PRODINTEC, a R&D Centre in Spain. We are currently developing a FO/RO wastewater pilot plant for laboratory/scaled tests with real waste streams. I had been mailing with Mr. Ed Beaudry when he was in HTI in order to purchase the FO elements but due to the recent changes in HTI I was unable to contact them again and the online shop seem to be disabled (in fact, according I read in ForwardOsmosisTech.com, I am not sure if they are out of business or not).

In this situation I need to find an alternative supplier for 2,5” elements and I am not able to find it. Some time ago I contacted the most known companies in “FO World” but no solution could be found (Porifera only sells flat sheet modules and ModernWater / OasysWater only sell complete solution, not FO elements). Do you know about any potential supplier in Europe or Worldwide?

Thank you in advance.

We asked David a few additional questions to better understand his requirements

Q: What is the typical composition (TDS, COD, BOD, SDI, etc) of the waste-streams you are aiming to treat?

A: The pilot plant is intended to check the ability of the technology for further real water treatment plant implementations. According to that, different effluents described in FO bibliography (e.g. landfill leachate, sea water for desalinization, black-waters) are expected to be evaluated within the following months but I am not able to give you typical compositions from analytics.

Q: What is the target treatment capacity (liters per hour) of the pilot system you are designing?

A: We defined the capacity according to the HTI 2,5” membranes data sheet (up to 80 lpm flow rate of the feed stream and a treatment capacity of app. 5 litres per hour based on a total membrane module area of 0.5m2 ). If such membranes are no more available we would be open to evaluate other alternatives (e.g. different form factor or different dimensions and capacity).

Q: What are your reasons for choosing a spiral wound FO module form factor? Have you considered using hollow fiber FO modules instead?

A: The main reason is that HTI was the most accessible supplier and their modules were spiral wound. I can consider using hollow fiber modules if commercial ones are available.

Q: How many modules are you looking to purchase?

A: It depends on the performance of the modules. We expect to use five (5) 2,5”-modules but we may reconsider it.

-0-

The ForwardOsmosisTech Team

 

3 thoughts on “Inquiry: forward osmosis elements needed for an FO/RO wastewater pilot plant

  1. Marcus Low says:

    Hi,

    Sorry to actually hijack this post. I’m a research fellow in Singapore looking to get commercial FO membranes (ideally flat sheet, though other configurations can be considered) as well for some fundamental FO process research. Tried contacting HTI but to no avail. Would appreciate if anyone can help point me towards other commercial FO manufacturers.

    • devesh bharadwaj says:

      Hello,

      Same, I am looking for HTI TFC 2.5 inch elements. Can anyone direct me to a similar company, or someone with this product?

      Regards,

      Dev

  2. Esben Gad says:

    Dear David, Marcus,

    At Aquaporin, we are currently upscaling production of biomimetic, aquaporin based FO membranes in various form factors including flat sheet and hollow fibre. Please reach out either to me directly (ega@aquaporin.dk) or through our main point of contact (aquaporin@aquaporin.dk) and we would be happy to help you out.

    Best, – Esben

Leave a Reply to Marcus Low Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.