More troubleshooting

Well, we had a few more setbacks, but we are still making progress. We have had trouble with our membrane systems and what we thought was scale (precipitation from dissolved constituents that are at high concentrations), but we weren't sure why it was happening - especially in the primary desalter (RO/NF; here's a link for a previous post if you haven't read it). I have double-checked calculations, so I was pretty stumped. Last night, after running all day, we made the decision to shut down because we had lost flow in the EDM feed. After inspecting equipment and tanks, we made some changes to cartridge filters on the brackish water feed (installed ones with smaller pores). Sometimes particles can increase the chance of precipitation, so hopefully we have solved the problem with new filters. We also removed and cleaned the EDM stack.

It turns out that we didn't quite have enough waste to run our evaporation system just yet. Having high recovery means that it takes days to produce enough waste to recover salts. But, we did operate for a few hours and Victoria got to learn how to track the progress by measuring each tank's water level, temperature, and conductivity.

Tomorrow we will test the system for a while tomorrow and are preparing for some more seminars and tours of the pilot system next week.