Nowadays, the membrane water treatment process of reverse osmosis RO+electro deionized EDI has been widely used, and there have been numerous successful examples in water treatment in industries such as power plants and energy. Compared to traditional ion exchange processes, the combination of RO and EDI not only helps to improve water production efficiency, but also basically eliminates the use of acid and alkali, effectively eliminating potential pollution hazards in the water treatment process, and significantly reducing water consumption, energy consumption, and equipment footprint.

Below, the editor will compare the RO+EDI process with traditional ion exchange technology from four aspects: initial project investment, operating costs, operation and maintenance, and emission recovery.

In terms of initial investment in the project, the use of RO+EDI technology for small-scale water treatment systems eliminates the need for acid and alkali, thus eliminating the large regeneration system used in traditional ion exchange processes. While significantly reducing equipment procurement costs, it can also save 10% to 20% of ground area, thereby reducing the cost of building construction and investment.

Generally speaking, before the raw water enters the RO+EDI system, it needs to undergo appropriate pretreatment to improve the purity of the treated water, reduce the pollution index, hardness, and ion content of residual chlorine that can harm the normal operation of the membrane, thereby protecting the RO membrane and improving the efficiency of EDI. Compared to traditional ion exchange processes, the RO+EDI process has higher requirements for inlet water. Considering that the concentrated water from the second stage reverse osmosis and EDI is fully recovered, the concentrated water from the first stage reverse osmosis needs to be discharged, and the workload of the pre-treatment system increases. It is expected to require an initial investment of about 20%.

From the perspective of operating costs, the reverse osmosis plus EDI process is generally slightly higher than traditional ion exchange processes, mainly reflected in power consumption, spare parts replacement, and other aspects.

In terms of adaptability, the reverse osmosis+EDI process has strong adaptability to the salt content of raw water, such as seawater, groundwater, river water, etc. The reverse osmosis process can be used, while the ion exchange process is not economical when the dissolved solid content in the influent is greater than 500 mg/L. Moreover, the reverse osmosis+EDI process does not require a large amount of acid-base consumption, nor does it generate a large amount of acid-base wastewater, resulting in minimal environmental pollution.

In terms of operation and maintenance, the reverse osmosis+EDI process has a high degree of automation, is easy to program control, and is easy to operate and maintain.

In summary, the reverse osmosis+EDI process has many advantages, but there are also certain shortcomings. For example, the equipment cost is relatively high. When the equipment malfunctions, professional technical personnel are usually needed for maintenance, especially when the reverse osmosis membrane and EDI membrane stack are damaged, the equipment shutdown time is expected to be long. In addition, for some industrial concentrated salt water treatment, the cost is high and the difficulty is high.

In large-scale water treatment systems (when the system produces a large amount of water), the initial investment of RO+EDI water systems is much higher than that of traditional exchange process water systems. In small-scale water treatment systems, the use of RO+EDI and traditional ion exchange processes in the water system is roughly equivalent in terms of initial investment. It is recommended to prioritize the use of reverse osmosis and EDI treatment process when the water system has a small amount of water. This process has low initial investment, high degree of automation, good effluent quality, and minimal environmental pollution.

专业水处理的疑难问题，产品选型问题，可以单击下面的微信二维码电话联系贺工在线指导，长按微信二维码可自动识别添加贺工微信沟通解决您的疑难问题