The core desalination technology of the platform: a semi-permeable membrane driven by pressure, with recovery, salt rejection, energy and concentrate all derived by real engines.
- Active
- Available
Seawater Reverse Osmosis SWRO
RO applied to seawater: high feed salinity, single-pass configuration, and a recovery limited by osmotic pressure and scaling rather than by membrane rejection.
Overview
RO applied to seawater: high feed salinity, single-pass configuration, and a recovery limited by osmotic pressure and scaling rather than by membrane rejection.
How it works
Separation mechanism and feed window. Feed TDS around 35,000 mg/L. The osmotic pressure of seawater sets a high minimum feed pressure, and the concentrate reaches a TDS where several scalants can precipitate.
What the process produces. A permeate near 300 mg/L TDS at a plant recovery typically well below 50 %, because of the osmotic ceiling.
Energy. High — seawater osmotic pressure dominates specific energy consumption.
Process sequence
Where this technology normally sits in a treatment train. The steps either side of it are documented in the Library as separate entries.
- Open intake or wellfield
- Media filtration
- Antiscalant dosing
- High-pressure pump
- RO stage
- Remineralisation
- Product tank
Typical applications
- Coastal seawater supply
- Island and remote community supply
- Industrial seawater-derived process water
Main equipment
- High-pressure pump (often with energy recovery)
- SWRO membrane elements in pressure vessels
- Open intake structure or beach wellfield
- Pretreatment and antiscalant dosing
- Remineralisation and product storage
Key design parameters
The parameters an engineer actually sets, and why each one drives the design. EngiMetric does not assume any of them.
| Parameter | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Feed salinity | Sets osmotic pressure, hence minimum feed pressure and energy. |
| Recovery ceiling | Limited by concentrate saturation, not by membrane rejection. |
| Feed pressure | Must clear osmotic pressure plus friction and discharge losses. |
| Calcium and sulfate scaling | The dominant scaling species in seawater concentrate. |
Advantages
- Proven at large scale with published plant references.
- Can share a single intake and pre-treatment with a thermal plant if one exists.
Limitations
- Higher energy than brackish RO for the same product volume.
- Corrosion and biofouling risk in raw seawater intake and pre-treatment.
- Concentrate is large in volume and must be discharged or used.
Engineering considerations
- Recovery must be chosen against concentrate saturation, not maximised.
- The design basis margin exposes whether the stated intake actually delivers the required product through the configured chain.
- EngiMetric computes concentrate TDS by salt conservation from stated feed chemistry and flags it for verification.
Status and EngiMetric support
Industry maturity and commercial status describe the technology itself. EngiMetric support and quantitative modeling describe what this platform does with it — and those two are read from the engineering registry at build time, so they cannot drift from the code.
- Engineering maturity
- Mature How established the technology is in the industry. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- Commercial status
- Established Where the technology sits in the market. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- EngiMetric support
- Active Derived from the execution registry: ro is registered as supported.
- Design engine
- Yes Whether the Plant Designer can carry this as a configured process step.
- Quantitative modeling
- Available Derived: 10 of 12 registered capabilities run a deterministic engine.
What EngiMetric computes
These capabilities are registered in the EngiMetric execution registry. Each one runs a deterministic engine, so every result is reproducible from the inputs you supply.
- RO permeate TDS calculatePermeateTds
- RO salt rejection calculateSaltRejection
- RO salt passage calculateSaltPassage
- RO water balance verifyFlowBalance
- RO concentrate flow calculateConcentrateFlow
- RO osmotic pressure calculateRoOsmoticPressure
- RO energy and specific power calculateRoEnergy
- RO concentration factor calculateConcentrationFactor
- RO scaling risk analyzeScalingRisk
- RO recovery calculateRoRecovery
Related tools
Every tool below exists and is live. EngiMetric does not duplicate a formula here — the calculation lives in the tool, and this page links to it.
- RO Osmotic Pressure Calculator The seawater osmotic pressure that sets feed pressure.
- RO Recovery Calculator Product and concentrate split at the stated recovery.
- RO Scaling Risk & Pretreatment Analysis Calcium and sulfate saturation in the concentrate.
- RO Energy & Specific Power Calculator Specific energy consumption for the seawater case.
Design this as a plant
The built-in Single-Stage RO demo case (seawater-open-intake) is exactly this technology, and the full Plant Designer guide walks through it.
Verified against the authoritative treatment model, which configures:
ro-stage