LoWatt® Membrane Desalination Process

Aquatech has developed LoWatt® Membrane Desalination technology to focus on membrane desalination’s two biggest pain points: biofouling and energy consumption. The LoWatt® process couples robust pretreatment, an optimized Reverse Osmosis design, and a proprietary cleaning mechanism to deliver the lowest cost of desalinated fresh water. The proprietary LoWatt® process reduces energy consumption and delivers the lowest cost of water to customers. LoWatt® is a low energy desalination system designed for higher reliability and optimal energy consumption – up to 25% less than conventional systems. It integrates UF membrane pretreatment and a nutrient removal step while continuously deactivating bacteria without using any chemicals to mitigate biofouling.

Low Energy Desalination

LoWatt® is a low energy desalination system designed for higher reliability and optimal energy consumption – up to 25% less than conventional SWRO.

LoWatt® integrates UF membrane pretreatment and a bio-foulent removal step while continuously deactivating bacteria without using any chemicals to mitigate biofouling. The technology also uses a proprietary, chemical-free online cleaning and flushing process that minimizes cleaning cycles and increases plant availability.

The LoWatt® low energy desalination system results in lower life cycle costs by addressing the ever present challenge of biofouling resulting from the presence of complex organics and bacteria in seawater. Even with an optimized design for a Reverse Osmosis system, pressure creep takes place in a relatively short time. Pressure-creep happens due to the bio and particulate fouling of the membranes that result in a reduction of permeate flow and an increase of Differential Pressure (DP) across the membranes. The cleaning process requires the system to be off-line resulting in reduced up time and shorter membrane life.

Value propositions

• Increase reliability
• Higher uptime
• Lower opex
• Reduce life cycle cost

Technology features

• Fewer cleanings resulting in higher plant up-time
• Innovative chemical-free online cleaning mechanism
• Power consumption of <3KWH/m3

LoWatt® – Low Energy Desalination – Application

The experience with a plant utilizing Lowatt® was consistent with pilot projects that validate the process.

• The differential pressure drop across the membrane did not increase and remained constant.
• The RO system with the LoWatt® process did not require cleaning. No changes or increase in power consumption were found with LoWatt® process.