Reverse Osmosis (RO) & Desalination Plant Operations Training Course

Course Overview

Learning Objectives

• Analyze desalination technologies, including thermal and membrane processes, and the role of reverse osmosis in water supply on Day 1.
• Interpret feedwater chemistry and quality parameters, including salinity, silt density index, turbidity, scaling indices, organics, and boron.
• Apply intake system operation and control practices, including screening, chlorination, and algal bloom management.
• Operate and optimize pretreatment systems, including coagulation, dissolved air flotation, media filtration, ultrafiltration, cartridge filtration, dechlorination, and antiscalant and acid dosing.
• Apply reverse osmosis principles, including osmotic pressure, flux, recovery, salt rejection, and concentration polarization.
• Explain membrane types, element and pressure vessel arrangements, and array, stage, and pass configurations.
• Operate high-pressure pumps and energy recovery devices and evaluate their effect on specific energy consumption.
• Apply safe startup, shutdown, flushing, and preservation procedures for RO systems.
• Normalize RO operating data and monitor normalized permeate flow, salt passage, and differential pressure to assess performance.
• Diagnose biofouling, scaling, colloidal and organic fouling, and membrane damage and plan clean-in-place procedures.
• Manage second-pass and boron removal systems, post-treatment and remineralization, disinfection, and brine discharge.
• Optimize energy use, maintenance, instrumentation and control, and safety in RO plant operations by the end of Day 5.

Who Should Attend

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of the course, participants will be able to:
• Explain how reverse osmosis desalination works and how it compares with thermal processes.
• Interpret feedwater quality data and identify fouling and scaling risks.
• Operate intake systems and respond to algal bloom events.
• Optimize pretreatment to protect RO membranes.
• Understand how flux, recovery, and rejection affect RO performance.
• Describe RO arrays, stages, and passes.
• Operate high-pressure pumps and energy recovery devices efficiently.
• Start up, shut down, and flush RO systems safely.
• Normalize operating data and detect performance decline early.
• Diagnose fouling and scaling and carry out effective membrane cleaning.
• Manage post-treatment, boron removal, and brine discharge.
• Improve energy efficiency, reliability, and safety in RO plant operations.

Course Outline