Pre-treatment for Southern Seawater Desalination

The existing Perth Seawater Desalination Plant currently provides 17% of Perth's water supply, and when the Southern Seawater Desalination Plant is commissioned in 2011, a total of approximately 30% of Perth's water will be supplied from climate-independent sources.

The project will be delivered as an Alliance between the Water Corporation and the Southern Seawater Joint Venture comprising Worley Parsons, Valoriza Agua, Tecnicas Reunidas and AJ Lucas. Siemens will provide ten Seablock membrane filtration units, each consisting of 912 hollow fiber membrane modules. This innovative technology 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 for its reduced system footprint, simplicity of operation, ability to treat feed without coagulant addition, lower energy cost and improved feed water quality for the downstream reverse osmosis system when compared to conventional technology. The equipment is manufactured by Siemens in Australia, with technical engineering design and service support provided locally.

The Seablock pressurized membrane system is ideal for use in desalination pretreatment applications. Compact and modular in design, the system can be installed and started up quickly, and can be 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 unit that uses common piping, valves and controls. Seablock systems are typically 30% smaller in footprint than other membrane systems. With a verifiable barrier rated at 0.04 microns, the membranes ensure superior silt density index (SDI) compared to conventional technologies without the need for feed coagulation or downstream cartridge filters. The result is a more efficient, easily designed and installed membrane system that reduces both greenhouse emissions and the overall cost of operation of the integrated dual membrane desalination plant.