Increasing levels of contamination in water sources pose a significant problem to industrial water operators around the world. Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane fouling can cause treatment systems to become unreliable, increase requirements for chemical cleaning and cause the system to become less energy efficient.

Since 2017, FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR100 Elements from DuPont Water Solutions have been deployed by the Shandong Chuanyang Iron & Steel company in Zouping, China to improve the efficiency of their water system operations. The plant requires 150m³ of demineralized water per hour for plant operations and the onsite water treatment system sources raw water from the Yellow River which is becoming increasingly contaminated at an alarming rate.

By replacing the FilmTec™ BW30-400 RO elements with FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR100 RO elements, the plant was able to reduce the impact of fouling on system performance and increase its overall efficiency. Most importantly, the shift to FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR100 RO elements allowed for sustained performance; previously operating flux had been dropping to 8-15 LMH from peaks of 25 LMH, and system recovery levels would drop from 70-75% to 40-50% due to membrane fouling.

These performance benefits were coupled with reduced cleaning requirements. After switching to FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR100 RO elements, clean-in-place frequency intervals increased from an average of 22.1 days to 52.3 days, allowing for greater system uptime.

Explore the operation and performance data within this case study to find out how FilmTec™ Fortilife™ CR100 RO elements provided the Shandong Chuanyang Iron & Steel company with relief from biological fouling.