3 minute read
R&D SPOTLIGHT:
REDUCING THE CARBON FOOTPRINT IN THE RAS AL KHAIR PLANT
Dr. Chris Fellow, Senior Anti-Scaling Expert at SWCC, and Eng. Fredrich Alt, Professional Engineer
Improvements to the Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) portion of the plant
The Operations and Maintenance team at the Ras al Khair integrated water and power plant, together with the researchers of the Water Technologies Research Institute (WTRI) have implemented changes to the plant which have had a dramatic effect on the ‘carbon footprint’ of the plant. A number of operational improvements to the Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) portion of the plant, which produces approximately 770,000 m3 of potable water per day, have reduced the allocated annual gas energy consumption by about 4,000 billion BTU. The decision has been made to maintain the production of water and electricity at the same level as previously, which translates into a carbon dioxide abatement of 171,000 tons per year.
Improvement to Reverse Osmosis (RO) portion of the plant
Further savings have been made by changing the membranes used in two trains of the Reverse Osmosis (RO) portion of the plant, reducing the specific energy consumption to give a further 6500 tons per year of carbon dioxide abatement, for a total savings of 177,500 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Extending the modifications already made to two trains to the entire RO system at Ras al Khair will realise 55,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide abatement, for a total projected carbon dioxide reduction of 226,000 tons per year. This is approximately the same as the entire carbon dioxide emissions of the Comoros Islands.1
The improvements made to operations at the Ras al Khair integrated water and power plant are not unique to that facility –similar operational changes and modifications should be possible across the entire system of SWCC plants, potentially giving up to five times as much carbon abatement, so of order of 1,000,000 tons per year.
1| Comoros, the only member of the Arab League entirely in the southern hemisphere, sits off the east coast of Africa and has a population of nearly 900,000.
About the Authors
Dr. Christopher Fellows received his PhD in physical chemistry in 1999 and worked at the University of Sydney and the University of New England (Australia) before joining the DTRI in 2019. His chief interests are in scale control, polymerization mechanisms, and the very broad topic of fundamental thermodynamics and kinetics of chemical processes of relevance to industry. Within the WTRI, his work encompasses the development and testing of novel antiscalants based on the ‘edge-activity’ mechanism, development of novel processes for remineralization, development of evaporation-control systems, and modelling processes for extracting valuable components from desalination brine – ‘brine mining’. Dr Fellows has authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of New England, Australia, a member of the IUPAC Polymer Division, and chair of the IUPAC Subcommittee on Polymer Education. Eng. Fredrich Alt EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND Degree in Process Engineering from German College Registered Professional Engineer in the State of California - USA
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE About 45 years engineering experience in thermal seawater desalination, including process design, plant engineering, start up and commissioning of MSF plants, vertical tube and horizontal tube MED plants, research & development and system operation optimization of existing plants. Working with companies like INCON – Germany, ENVIROGENICS – USA, DOOSAN – Korea and since 2018 with SWCC – DTRI/WTRI in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Holding multiple patents related to optimized evaporator configurations.
Email contacts: falt@swcc.gov.sa FritzAlt@ProEngLLC.com
