Role of membrane autopsy in enhancing reverse osmosis plant operation

摘要

Reverse osmosis (RO) has successfully emerged as a broadly-used commercial water purification technology inrnrecent decades. Nevertheless, RO membrane elements, the core component of this purification process, arernfrequently subjected to premature degradation and performance deterioration, adversely impacting RO plantrnoperation & maintenance. Membrane autopsy is a well-proven yet under-valued procedure for effectively assessingrnthe condition of membranes and determining the root-cause of performance loss. This paper aims to providerna general methodology utilized commercially to perform membrane autopsy and employ three case studiesrnto explicitly demonstrate the value addition to operators and end-users when applying membrane autopsy inrn(1) failure analysis and trouble-shooting, (2) operation optimization and routine monitoring, and (3) asset managementrnand maintenance enhancement.