Industrial RO Produces Potable Water for Food Plant

In 2018, a customer asked Caloris to provide a membrane filtration system to produce potable water from a local city water source at a food processing plant site in Maryland. Caloris was able to offer a modular, turnkey system that would fit within the plant’s existing process area.

The industrial RO system would eventually need to produce 200 gpm of potable water, but initially would only need a capacity of 140 gpm. Caloris designed the system so that it was configured for the initial capacity, but easily expandable to the target of 200 gpm when the customer was ready.

Incoming city water comes in at approximately 60 degrees F. Based on the results of the site feed water analysis, it needed to operate at 80% recovery (permeate-to-feed ratio). The system needed acid or anti-scalants to prevent scale formation and anti-oxidants to prevent oxidation of the RO membrane surfaces.

The RO unit was designed with two stages, incorporating 8″ RO membranes.

The incoming city water feed is supplied to the RO inlet automatic valve at 45 psi minimum pressure. The pre-treatment chemicals (anti-scalant and anti-oxidant) are added after the inlet valve to prevent damage to the RO. A multi-stage feed pump boosts the pressure entering the two RO stages to as high as 260 psi.

Recovery in the system is controlled by a concentrate control valve, which maintains the ratio of the permeate flow and the feed flow. Proper recovery is important to preventing scale in stage 2.

The system has a manual CIP regimen including CIP tank, pump, heating system and valving to allow for individual cleaning of each of the RO stages. The CIP tank and pump also can be used to perform the automatic permeate flush operation at the end of each production cycle. The unit required CIP after one year.

The skidded system is 8′ x 15′ x 10′ and Caloris worked with the customer to make sure it would fit within their existing operation and be easily serviceable.

After installing, commissioning and testing the unit, Caloris engineers trained the plant’s employees on the new RO skid in both classroom and hands-on sessions. The end customer reported that the system met their needs and are now considering an additional unit. 

CALORIS ENGINEERING LLC offers a variety of product designs that can be configured to accommodate the complex processing needs for numerous product streams and wastewater applications. Contact our sales and technical specialists at 410-822-6900 or email problem.solved@caloris.com to discuss your specific needs. Caloris has several small pilot evaporators that can be used to evaluate opportunities.