This lecture explains practical approaches to reducing operation and maintenance (O&M) costs and mitigating fouling in reverse osmosis (RO) membrane systems for wastewater treatment. Wastewater reuse applications balance energy, chemical, and membrane replacement costs.

Key topics include:

Biofouling Control: Techniques using appropriate biocides and intermittent dosing to suppress differential pressure increases while minimizing oxidative membrane degradation and negative impacts on boron and silica rejection rates.

Organic Fouling Control: Adopting a new cleaning philosophy that tolerates initial performance decline and initiates clean-in-place (CIP) promptly when normalized permeate flow drops after stabilization.

Energy Savings via Low-Flux Design: Combining low-flux operation and proper array configurations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and extend membrane life.

Through actual plant implementation examples, this session demonstrates reliable operation even under severe conditions.