Canyon Regional Water Authority-Ceramic UF Retrofit Saves Costs, Power, Labor and Water
Canyon Regional Water Authority was experiencing operational issues with their existing polymeric UF system, threatening its ability to consistently provide 14 MGD to the community of New Braunfels, Texas.
Challenges for CRWA:
- Difficulty meeting capacity demands: Downtime for membrane cleaning and repairs jeopardized daily capacity goals.
- Ongoing issues with membrane integrity: Massive fiber breakage created an arduous task for operators in having to pin fibers so the water quality wouldn’t be compromised.
- Low water recovery rate: Recovery rate was only 83.6% due to the long backwashes necessary to keep the system functioning.
- Lost productivity and unnecessary cost: Manpower and chemical costs to maintain the polymeric UF membranes had a significant impact on operating costs.
After Nanostone CM-151 retrofit, CRWA Achieved a 97.7% recovery rate compared to 83.6% prior to the retrofit, and a 50% reduction in power use.
A Clear Choice for Improved Efficiency, Reliability and Effectiveness.
Implementation of Nanostone CM-151 Ceramic Ultrafiltration Membrane System enabled CRWA to:
- Ensure daily capacity with improved reliability, providing a consistent supply of high-quality drinking water to the community.
- Improve water quality, producing permeate water with turbidity as low as 0.025 NTU as compared with 0.074 NTU previously.
- Increase overall water recovery rate by 14.1%, saving water and increasing plant productivity
- Reduce power by 50% by switching to dead-end filtration mode and eliminating the need for recirculation pumps.
- Improve the plant’s working conditions, phasing out hours of manual intervention to repair fiber breakage.
“ When it was finally time to replace the polymeric UF membranes, we first conducted side-by-side pilot tests of two PVDF membranes and Nanostone’s CM-151. Nanostone has
been the answer to our problems. The ceramic membranes are robust, low maintenance, use less process water to operate.”
Adam Telfer | CRWA Operations Manager