Piloting = Troubleshooting

Well, today was a mixed bag. We are having all of the usual challenges for a pilot just getting started. Every brackish water has a unique blend of dissolved constituents. You can try to estimate settings and operational checks, but a lot of pilot work involves trying something and seeing if it works. C'est la vie!

One of our flow sensors wasn't working fully in our system. Industrial Water Services really helped us out by taking calls, texts, and emails from me requesting assistance on how to troubleshoot the sensor and wiring. I had almost searched every possible loose wire when Victor stepped in. He has studied electronics and electrical systems - and he even brought his own screwdrivers (I need the really small ones - like the ones for fixing eyeglasses). After a few minutes of searching, he found a loose wire and reconnected it. We restarted the system and now the flow sensor is working! Victor has class in the afternoons so he normally doesn't get photographed. I thought it would be nice to post a picture of his success.

Successful wire hunting! (photo credit: Clara Borrego)

Clara and Mr. Rusbel finishing up on the RO/NF

After having a good start yesterday, we had to shut it down because we had precipitation in one of our EDM streams and our RO/NF (here's a link to a previous post in case you haven't read about our system yet). The RO/NF membranes had been installed since we were optimizing in El Paso. During the month-long journey to Tegucigalpa, some sulfate reducing bacteria (I'm basing this on the smell after we rinsed the membranes during startup) found a happy home. I kept the membranes in for the initial week because we have a very tight deadline for a funding milestone and the water quality was still acceptable. We replaced the RO and NF membranes (two of each) this morning and the system seems to be OK. We're still fine-tuning the operations. Today, Mr. Rusbel helped out with removal and re-installation of some of our flow monitoring equipment. He drives us around and shows us the city in between our apartment and the pilot (and grocery shipping, hardware stores, pharmacies, etc.). Many of the roads here are very windy and steep. And the traffic is absolutely nuts! I'm glad he drives!

Our system shut down automatically late tonight. We will investigate what happened tomorrow morning and hope to have the system operational again by the afternoon.

I like to end things on a good note. After nearly 24 hours of operation, we have finally accumulated enough of our EDM concentrate streams to start producing gypsum and recovering NaCl. We made a short video to document the occasion. One interesting thing to note is that we recorded the video at 6:30 pm here and we needed a flashlight to see the equipment clearly. The daylight hours are so different from El Paso!