LG Water Solutions has taken a sizeable chunk of the reverse osmosis membrane market over the last few years as it expands its product lines. Reducing energy consumption and looking beyond RO are its next priorities.
Dr. Hoon Hyung, Head of LG Water Solutions business unit at LG Chem, engaged in Global Water Intelligence’s “CTO Outlook” interview.
What are the main elements of your technology strategy in terms of accelerating future growth?
One of the main strategies to grow our business further is to address the energy issue in desalination. Upon the start of the NanoH2O business in 2005, our slogan was “More Water, Less Energy”. That statement emphasises how we embrace the importance of energy saving in desalination.
We have observed innovations in reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology over the last few decades and LG Chem’s NanoH2O membranes have made a great contribution towards energy saving. However, we still believe there is room for improvement. LG Chem just released its new generation membranes with a record-breaking 99.89% rejection, and we believe the products will greatly help to reduce the energy of seawater desalination further.
We are also trying to address technological challenges associated with wastewater reuse, where we see high growth potential in the future. In this application, it is critical to achieve a higher recovery RO system, thus minimising the brine stream and reducing the project cost. Addressing higher recovery is different from typical membrane performance parameters such as rejection and flow. This requires membrane manufacturers to look into other aspects of membrane properties such as physical and chemical durability and tolerance to higher fouling potentials.
How can we achieve that higher recovery with membranes?
To achieve a higher recovery, there are two main aspects to address from the RO membrane point of view. The first one is to make the membrane more resistant to fouling and the other one is to make the membrane more tolerant to higher feed pressure operation. As you increase the recovery, the feedwater gets more concentrated as it moves downstream and the potential for membrane fouling increases as the result. Greater fouling requires more frequent and harsher membrane cleaning. Hence, it is important to come up with technological solutions to make the membrane more resilient.
The higher recovery is also associated with operation at a higher feed pressure. The maximum feed pressure of the membrane element often restricts the system recovery and an enhanced mechanical integrity of the membrane element can provide improvements to recovery performance. The solutions to this issue should be evaluated in membrane element geometry and structure, as well as membrane chemistry. It is questionable that the spiral wound configuration, which is the standard for current RO technology, is the most optimised option to achieve the higher recovery; we may need to come up with different configurations.
What gaps do you see in LG Water Solutions’ water technology portfolio that could be strengthened?
In the short term, we are focused on diversifying our product portfolio for brackish water RO membranes. We started our business in seawater RO and have a full product line with strong performance in seawater applications. We released the first brackish water RO product just three years ago and we have made great progress penetrating the market, winning recent high-profile membrane replacement projects like the Groundwater Replenishment System in Orange County and the West Basin Municipal Water District’s water recycling facility. However, we still have a limited product offering for brackish water RO and we would like to expand the products to accommodate various client needs.
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