Seawater Pretreatment by Microfiltration: An Economic Assessment

This paper conducts cost and economic analyses of the microfiltration system (MFS) seawater pretreatment technique for reverse osmosis (RO) application. The study is based on operational results from an RO plant in Kuwait and, for the sake of comparability, the analysis follows the same approach as the earlier studies that evaluated the cost-effectiveness of alternative techniques. The analysis shows that the MFS is as cost-effective as the beachwell system, which gives substantial cost savings compared with the conventional surface system.