The performance of contact flocculation-filtration as pretreatment of seawater reverse osmosis

Abstract Deep bed filtration has traditionally been used as a pretreatment in seawater desalination. The performance of contact flocculation–filtration (CFF) as pretreatment of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) was evaluated in terms of pressure drop through the filter and removal of organics and turbidity. The average turbidity, total suspended solids, and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of raw seawater were 0.92 NTU, 3.6, and 1.12 mg/L, respectively. The performances of CFF were experimentally evaluated with different flocculant doses (0.5–3.0 mg Fe3+/L) and rapid mixing times (1.7–14.4 s). Here rapid mixing was performed in a spiral flocculation unit which consisted of a PVC tube of length 0.5 m and internal diameters of 0.16 and 0.40 cm. The experimental results show that the filtration rate of 10.0 m/h led to an extensive increase in both head loss (pressure drop) and turbidity as compared to those at filtration rates of 5.0 and 7.5 m/h. The head loss also significantly decreased when the flocculant dos...