Advanced Water Treatment and Re-use

Course structure

The course's didactics include lectures, a laboratory session, workshops, design exercise, and a visit to a membrane water treatment plant. The lectures and workshops include computer presentation, and are of an interactive nature. During the design exercise, a computer aided design of a seawater reverse osmosis system is made using the program IMS RO Design (Hydranautics). 

It is possible to take part in the examination of this short course. If you obtain a passing mark for this examination and return to UNESCO-IHE within four years after completion of the short course to follow a full MSc programme, you will receive exemption for this short course/module. The costs for this exam are €250 extra and should be borne by yourself. Taking part in the examination is not compulsory. 

The examination takes place the Thursday (if not a Holiday) of the week after the end of the course.

The course runs over a period of three weeks, from Monday to Friday. Each day, up to a maximum of four lecturing periods are possible. Each academic period is divided in two academic hours of 45 minutes each with a pause of 15 minutes in between. 

The academic periods are the following: Period 1: 08:45-09:30, 09:45-10:30 -- Period 2: 10:45-11:30, 11:45-12:30 -- Period 3: 13:45-14:30, 14:45-15:30 -- Period 4: 15:45-16:30, 16:45-17:30.

There are no lectures during holidays. During the three weeks course several Dutch national holidays may take place (i.e., King’s day, Liberation day, Easter). The presence of holidays will influence the study load per day and in some cases the logical framework of the module.

The course takes place at the facilities of UNESCO-IHE 

Course content

• Introduction
  – Desalination and membrane related technologies. Water sources, applications, capacities, and cost.
• Ultra- and microfiltration
  – Basic principles. Membrane materials, pore size, flux, normalizing permeability, and fouling mechanisms.
  – Overview ultra- and micro-filtration elements and systems.
  – Fouling in MF/UF systems, fouling control and pre-treatment.
  - Workshop on low pressure membranes
  - New insights in disinfection & membrane integrity
• Reverse osmosis and nano-filtration
  – Basic principles. Flux, salt passage, rejection and concentration polarization.
  – Overview of RO and NF membranes and elements. Single and multiple staging. Energy consumption.
  – Summarizing process design of RO systems with spiral wound elements. Osmotic pressure, Net driving pressure. Permeate quality and flux.
  – Normalizing data in RO and NF systems in practice.
  – Fouling in RO and NF systems. Spacer and bundle fouling. Suspended and colloidal matter, iron and manganese, biofouling, organic fouling and scaling.
  – Conventional pre-treatment techniques for RO and NF. Media filtration, coagulation, sedimentation, and flotation.
  - Post-treatment options for RO and NF systems
  - Concentrate disposal in brackish & seawater reverse osmosis systems
  - Recent advances in RO technology, brackish water and water reuse
  - Computer aided design of a SWRO & BWRO plant
  Particulate fouling and pre-treatment
  – Fouling due to suspended and colloidal matter. Mechanisms of fouling.
  – Parameters to predict fouling. SDI/MFI (0.45) and MFI-UF.
  – Value of fouling predictions with SDI/MFI (0.45) in RO/NF and UF systems.– Pre-treatment in practice for removal of suspended and colloidal matter for RO/NF.
  Bio-fouling and pre-treatment
  – Pre-treatment for bio-fouling, principles, parameters AOC and BDOC, membrane fouling simulator, biocides.
  – Fouling due to algae and Transparent exopolymer particles (TEP) in RO/NF and UF systems.
  – Fouling due to organic matter. Oil compounds, anti-scalants and coagulant aids.
  Scaling and anti-scalants
  – Principles of scaling and prediction with computer program.
  – Manual calculations of scaling due to silica, calcium, barium strontium sulphate and calcium fluoride.
  – Calculation of the Stiff and Davis Index to predict scaling of calcium carbonate.
  – Scaling in seawater reverse osmosis.
  – Scaling control, monitoring and anti-scalants.
• Natural Treatment Systems
  – Theory and applications of bank filtration and soil aquifer recharge
• Advanced oxidation processes
  – Fundamentals of AOPs including ozone, H2O2, UV, and combinations; applications
• Water reuse
  – Fundamentals of water reuse, applications, and case studies for potable reuse, industrial reuse and aquifer recharge.
• Technical visit to a UF/RO plant (Every year a new facility is selected)

Lecturers

Maria Kennedy is Professor of Water Treatment Technology in UNESCO‐IHE. She has over 20 years of experience in research in desalination and membrane related technology. During the last 20 years, she has been involved in the supervision of over 100 MSc participants and more than 10 PhD research fellows in the areas of analytical chemistry, membrane fouling (indicators) & scaling, membrane pre‐treatment & cleaning, and environmental impact assessment of sea water desalination plants. She has over 100 publications in
international conference proceedings and peer reviewed journals in the fields of desalination and membrane technology. Since 2006, she is a board member of the European Desalination Society (EDS), and heavily involved in organising EDS conferences.
In 1999, she set up an international short course on ‘Membrane Technology in Drinking & Industrial Water Treatment’, and since 2000 she has organised numerous international short courses in the field of desalination & membrane related technology e.g. in Jordan, Palestine, Oman, Bahrain, Israel, St. Maarten and Yemen. She was the director of a Dutch Government (SAIL) sponsored project (2002‐2004) on ‘Water Sector Capacity Building in Palestine’.

Sergio Salinas is Lecturer in Water Supply Engineering at UNESCO-IHE. He has a PhD degree in the field of desalination and membrane technology and holds a university degree in Civil Engineering and two master degrees: in Irrigation, Drainage and GIS, and in Water Supply Engineering. In the last years, he has been extensively involved in research in the areas of biological stability of drinking water, membrane fouling, fouling indicators, scaling, pre-treatment, organic matter characterization of brackish water and seawater desalination plants. His current work includes coordination of the MSc in Water Supply Engineering, mentoring MSc and PhD students, preparation of lectures notes, organization of short courses, lecturing in the master programme, coordination of research projects and scientific reporting for external institutions (e.g., Grundfos, OASEN, EVIDES, KEMIRA, DOW, etc.), presenting research findings in scientific journals, international conferences, lectures and in specialised meetings. He has over 20 publications in international conference proceedings, peer-reviewed journals and book chapters in the areas of membrane desalination technology and natural organic matter characterisation.

The following lectures also contribute to the course:

Dr. Saroj Sharma (Natural treatment systems and water reuse),
Dr. Joop Kruithof (Advanced oxidation processes).