Specialty chemicals company Lanxess has developed a new normalisation software for analysing reverse osmosis.

 

PerforMem automatically imports system data from templates in standard process control systems and quickly normalises even large volumes of data, the company said in a statement.

 

“In addition to system data, laboratory measurements can also be entered and displayed alongside each other. To the best of our knowledge, no other normalisation software offers this level of flexibility,” said Dr Jens Lipnizki, head of Technical Marketing Membranes in the Liquid Purification Technologies business unit at Lanxess. “Programs like these are often Excel-based and thus cannot conveniently manage and analyse large volumes of data,” said the membrane expert.

 

PerforMem also provides a much more detailed graphical representation of process data and normalised values. Normalised values can then be converted to various formats for further processing or analysis if necessary.

 

Whenever membrane processes suffer from falling retention or reduced performance, this could be due to changes in the water quality or temperature, or deposits in the reverse osmosis system. To allow interference factors to be localised more easily, plant operators should continuously document a range of basic parameters such as temperature, flow, pressure, yield, and conductivity. It can also be helpful to measure the pressure drop, ideally between the concentrate stages.

 

This data should be normalised – in other words, set in relation to a standard condition. This allows operators to see whether the impaired performance can be attributed to the reverse osmosis system or altered feed parameters.

 

Digitalisation of plant data is one of the focal points and challenges in today’s water management sector. This involves digitalisation of not only large-scale plants, but also medium- and small-scale plants. The collection of plant data in a cloud in combination with remote maintenance makes economic sense no matter what size the plant. The data can be used for process optimisation and troubleshooting – provided that it can also be analysed. “This is frequently a weak point because, in practice – meaning, when the water treatment plant is in operation – huge volumes of data are recorded very quickly, but are rarely subject to any kind of analysis,” said Lipnizki.

 

The new PerforMem software quickly and accurately calculates current plant and laboratory data in relation to a reference point. This makes it easy to establish whether performance is impaired due to changed feed composition or fouling. If fouling, such as salt deposits, is the problem, countermeasures can be quickly implemented so that the plant can continue to run for as long as possible under optimum conditions, the statement added. –TradeArabia News Service