Barium Sulphate Solubility Prediction in Reverse Osmosis Membrane Systems

32 33 Barium sulphate scaling in reverse osmosis (RO) causes flux decline and potentially severe membrane damage. The method in the Du Pont Manual to predict barium sulphate scale, based on predicting barium solubility in RO concentrate, is unreliable and limited to 25 °C. This method predicted barium solubility was exceeded 14 times at 80% recovery and yet no scaling occurred at the pilot plant. Possible explanations are; inaccurate solubility prediction, low rate of barium sulphate precipitation and/or organic matter effects on solubility or precipitation. This study investigated barium solubility in the RO concentrate and the effect of e.g. ionic strength using more theoretical approaches to solubility prediction i.e. Bromley and Pitzer models. Seeded growth determination of barium solubility in RO and synthetic concentrate (no organic matter) confirmed supersaturation and proved organics had no effect on solubility. Du Pont’s method under predicted solubility by circa 30% at 25 °C. The Pitzer and Bromley methods when calibrated for RO concentrate by applying an experimental K sp gave accurate prediction at 5-25 °C for the ionic strength range of 0.01-0.1M. For higher ionic strengths, the Pitzer model was more accurate. The observed stable supersaturation (27 times the solubility at 5°C) in the pilot plant is most likely due to the low rate of barium sulphate precipitation. 34