The US Navy’s Office of Naval Research has contracted Pall Corporation for a multi-phase project to develop an advanced shipboard desalination system specifically for operations in coastal waters.
Pall will create a detailed design for navy ship water treatment using microfiltration (MF) and reverse osmosis (RO) that will increase the volume and reliability of fresh water generation while reducing energy and maintenance requirements.
Whether participating in active maneuvers or returning to shore, military vessels require highly-reliable water treatment systems to meet the demand for fresh water. In addition to being energy and resource intensive, traditional seawater desalination technologies are often unreliable.
Coastal sea water can be especially difficult to treat due to extremely high concentrations of suspended solids, as well as biological and organic contaminants. The navy also limits chemical usage on ships, creating restrictions to approaches used in land-based desalination plants.
During the first six-month phase of the project, Pall scientists will adapt the latest membrane technologies to design a solution capable of producing 4,000 GPD (15,140 L/d) of potable water. In the year-long second phase of the program, a prototype system will be developed and tested on land.
In the final 18-month phase, a fully compliant system will be tested for six months on a naval ship.
“Pall is honored to be selected to design customized, automated MF and RO technologies for the US Navy,” said Vince Northfield, newly appointed president of Pall Aerospace. “Our engineers and scientists will bring the experience of developing and commissioning hundreds of membrane systems worldwide to this project.”