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Departments > The Department of Desalination & Water Treatment (DWT)

The Pilot Plant for Desalination and Water Treatment

• Desalination (seawater, brackish water, wastewater, etc.)


• Upgrading industrial and municipal wastewater for reuse and recycling


• Minimization of effluents (approaching ZLD - Zero Liquid Discharge)


• Pre-treatment and preparation of difficult to treat effluents for downstream treatment processes


• Separation and recovery of valuable components from waste and process streams

The pilot plant is also intended for use as a teaching and training aid for our students and for personnel from any industry related to water treatment, desalination or effluent treatment.
The pilot plant is equipped with test units for carrying out the following unit operations:

• Reverse Osmosis / Nanofiltration at high pressure (up to 80 bars)


• Reverse Osmosis / Nanofiltration at low pressure (up to 20 bars)
  (Both of these facilities are designed to use commercial modules of 2" and 4" spiral wound membranes)

• A ZENON ultra-filtration (Hollow Fiber) unit for simulating MBR (Membrane Biological Reactor) processes


• Micro-filtration


• Ozonation


• Electrodialysis


• Adsorption and Ion-Exchange


• Wind Assisted Intensified Evaporation (WAIV) - an innovative evaporation technology


• Sand filtration

Other facilities can be constructed when needed. Most of the equipment is transportable and can be placed and operated at different locations in order to carry out field tests. The Department of Desalination and Water Treatment consists of a team of highly experienced scientists and engineers, specializing in membrane-based as well as other separation and desalination processes. Their work is supported by advanced research and analytical laboratories.

Services to industry offered by the Pilot Plant
The pilot plant is intended to serve and support the water treatment industry. It enables companies to test and evaluate methods for improving the performance of existing processes as well as to support and simulate innovative ideas.

It is targeted to support R&D aimed at conserving the environment and saving valuable resources, mainly - water.

Selected on-going projects include:

A research project, initiated by the staff of the pilot plant, proved the concept of a novel enhanced desupersaturation method for desalination concentrates as a pretreatment for further desalination steps.

Selected expected projects for 2008 are:

Prof. Yoram Oren Head of the Department Tel: +972-8-6477167 E-mail: yoramo@bgu.ac.il

Eng. Yg'al Volkman Manager of the Pilot Plant Tel: +972-8-6472741 E-mail: ygalv@bgu.ac.il