Perth to get membrane system

The development follows Southern Seawater Joint Venture (SSJV), which awarded Siemens a multimillion-pound contract to supply the system.

The Water Corporation’s desalination plant in Binningup, south of Perth, will produce about 15% of Perth’s water supply when completed. Currently, the existing Perth Seawater Desalination Plant provides 17% of Perth’s water supply, but when the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant is commissioned in 2011, about 30% of Perth’s water will be supplied from climate-independent sources.

The project is being delivered as an alliance between the Water Corporation and the SSJV, which comprises Worley Parsons, Valoriza Agua, Tecnicas Reunidas and AJ Lucas.

Seablock membrane systems are typically 30% smaller in footprint than other similar systems, and Siemens is providing ten of Seablock’s membrane filtration units, each comprising 912 hollow-fibre membrane modules – a technology that is growing in popularity as pre-treatment for reverse osmosis in water desalination and wastewater reuse applications.

The joint venture chose Siemens’ Memcor membrane technology because of its reduced system footprint, simplicity of operation, ability to treat feed without adding coagulant, and lower energy cost. It also offered an improved quality of feed water for the downstream reverse-osmosis system compared with conventional technology.

The Seablock pressurised membrane system is suitable for use in desalination pre-treatment applications. Compact and modular in design,

it can be installed and started up quickly and is easily expanded to meet future capacity demands without increasing footprint. The membrane modules are pre-loaded into arrays, and up to eight arrays can be combined to create a complete unit that uses common piping, valves and controls.

Both easily designed and installed, the resulting system is a more efficient membrane system that reduces both greenhouse emissions and the overall operating costs of the integrated dual membrane desalination plant.