Reverse Osmosis Plant Performance Calculator

About Calculator & How To Use

@ The performance of an RO/NF system is influenced by the feedwater composition, feed pressure, temperature and recovery. For example, a feed temperature drop of 4°C (7°F) will cause a permeate flow decrease of about 10%. This, however, is a normal phenomenon

@ In order to distinguish between such normal phenomena and performance changes due to fouling or problems, the measured permeate flow and salt passage have to be normalized. Normalization is a comparison of the actual performance to a given reference performance while the influences of operating parameters are taken into account. The reference performance may be the designed performance or the measured initial performance

@ Normalization with reference to the designed (or warranted) system performance is useful to verify that the plant gives the specified (or warranted) performance. Normalization with reference to the initial system performance is useful to show up any performance changes between day one and the actual date

@ Plant performance normalization is strongly recommended, because it allows an early identification of potential problems (e.g., scaling or fouling) when the normalized data are recorded daily. Corrective measures are much more effective when taken early.

@ A computer program called FTNORM is available for normalizing operating data and graphing normalized permeate flow and salt passage as well as pressure drop. This program is available from our web site https://www.dupont.com/water and requires Excel software. Alternatively, the measured plant performance at operating conditions can be transferred to standard (reference) conditions by the following calculations

  • How to use: Enter Water Analysis & Parameters or Use the Default - Hit UpdateChart and Calculate

  • The summary was shown below.

Input Values

Feed Water Analysis - Values Of Start Up - Mg/L

Ca
HCO3
Mg
SO4
Na
Cl

Feed Water Analysis - Values After 3 Months - Mg/L

Ca
HCO3
Mg
SO4
Na
Cl

Parameters - Values Of Start Up

Temp 0c
Pressure psi
Flow gpm
Recovery %
Pres, drop psi
Permeat Pres, psi
Permeat TDS

Parameters - Values After 3 Months

Temp 0c
Pressure psi
Flow gpm
Recovery %
Pres, drop psi
Permeat Pres, psi
Permeat TDS

Result

For the standard conditions we have:

CFS

Feed-concentrate average concentration (Start up)

mg/l

CFO

Feed-concentrate average concentration (After 3 months)

mg/l

CFCS

Average concentrate-side concentration for system (Start up)

mg/l

TCFS

Temperature correction factor for membrane permeability (Start up)

CFCO

Average concentrate-side concentration for system (After 3 months)

mg/l

TCFO

Temperature correction factor for membrane permeability (After 3 months)

QS gpm

Permeate flow --------------------------------

gpm

CPS

Compared to the initial --- mg/L, the salt rejection has slightly ---

mg/l

QS m3

Permeate flow --------------------------------

m3

% Lost

Compared to the start-up conditions, the plant has lost --- % capacity

%

Chart

System & Operating Permeat Flow & TDS

System Flow: GPM

Operating Flow: GPM

System TDS: MG/L

Operating TDS: MG/L

Summary

@ Compared to the start-up conditions, the plant has lost % capacity. This is a normal value after a period of 3 months.

@ Compared to the initial 83 mg/L, salt rejection has slightly improved. Such behavior is typical for the initial phase

@ Note: The temperature less than 25oC

Formular

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