TSE20-400 SWRO Membrane: High Salt & High Boron Removal Seawater Element

TSE20-400 SWRO Membrane: High Salt & High Boron Removal Seawater Element

TSE20-400 belongs to premium TSE series seawater reverse osmosis membrane, standing out from conventional BWRO brackish water membrane and ordinary SWRO elements with industry-leading high desalination rate and high boron removal rate. This 400 sq.ft thin-film composite membrane targets global seawater desalination projects, offshore watermakers and coastal industrial water production, effectively cutting secondary RO investment by stable single-pass boron rejection. It matches supporting 8-inch RO membrane housing and industrial high pressure water filter, solving the core pain point of excessive boron residue in standard seawater permeate for municipal, marine, chemical and aquaculture clients.

Product Description

As a flagship 8-inch spiral-wound seawater RO membrane of the TSE series, TSE20-400 is customized to address the strict boron limit standards released by WHO and international drinking water regulatory authorities, filling the performance gap of traditional SWRO elements with weak boron interception capacity. Most standard seawater membrane can only reach 85%-90% boron rejection under neutral seawater pH, while TSE20-400 upgrades the polyamide active layer molecular structure to realize over 94% steady boron removal in single-stage RO process, cooperating with multistage seawater desalination system to simplify post-treatment procedures.

The effective membrane area of TSE20-400 reaches 400 square feet, adopting 34mil thick feed channel spacer to mitigate brine concentration polarization in high-salinity seawater (32000-38000ppm TDS). Different from compact narrow-channel low pressure brackish water membrane, its widened flow channel reduces organic and inorganic scaling risk during long-cycle continuous operation, compatible with tropical high-temperature seawater intake in Middle East and Southeast Asian coastal regions. The membrane component maintains stabilized salt rejection above 99.85% under standard test pressure, eliminating frequent flux attenuation issues caused by high osmotic pressure of ocean water.

Targeting overseas buyers’ core demand of reducing overall water treatment cost, TSE20-400 avoids mandatory pH adjustment pretreatment for boron removal in most medium-salinity seawater projects. When paired with industrial precision pre-filter element, raw seawater only needs conventional coagulation, ultrafiltration and SDI control to reach qualified feed condition, cutting chemical dosing consumption and system auxiliary equipment investment. It supports modular parallel assembly inside standard 8-inch membrane pressure vessel, convenient for large-scale municipal desalination plant capacity expansion and small mobile offshore watermaker equipment integration.

Working Principle

The core separation logic of TSE20-400 relies on upgraded thin-film nanocomposite polyamide TFN membrane technology, breaking the bottleneck of traditional aromatic polyamide membrane’s weak interception of neutral boric acid molecules. Ordinary SWRO membrane carries uniform negative surface charge, which can only repel ionized borate radicals under high pH, while neutral H₃BO₃ molecules pass through membrane pores freely. TSE20-400 adds hydrophilic nano functional groups inside the active layer to form dual barrier of molecular size screening and weak charge adsorption against un-ionized boric acid.

Under high-pressure driving force of 5.52MPa standard operating pressure, seawater feed flows along the 34mil wide feed spacer, water molecules penetrate the dense polyamide active layer through hydrogen bond affinity channel, while dissolved NaCl salt ions, heavy metal colloids and boric acid molecules are trapped on the feed side to form concentrated brine. The unique leaf folding structure of TSE20-400 shortens permeate flow path, reducing internal pressure loss and ensuring consistent boron and salt rejection across the entire membrane surface without local performance deviation.

In two-stage seawater desalination matching scenario, TSE20-400 serves as first-stage primary filtration element to lower boron concentration of primary permeate below 0.7mg/L, greatly reducing processing load of second-stage membrane. The boric acid interception mechanism does not rely on strong alkali dosing, so the feed pH fluctuation range can be controlled within 7.2-10.5 without damaging membrane material, extending the effective service cycle compared with conventional high-boron rejection membrane that requires strict pH adjustment.

Technical Features

1. Ultra-high single-pass boron interception molecular structure

TSE20-400 adopts gradient dense active layer coating process, the pore size distribution of polyamide surface is precisely controlled within 0.2-0.4nm, perfectly matching the hydrated molecular radius of boric acid. Independent third-party testing verifies its stabilized boron rejection ≥94% at natural seawater pH 7.8, 12% higher than mainstream ordinary SWRO models of the same specification, capable of meeting 0.5mg/L boron drinking water standard without secondary RO treatment for low-medium salinity seawater sources.

2. 34mil anti-scaling wide feed channel design

Different from 28mil narrow spacer used by most high-flux seawater membrane, TSE20-400 equips 34mil thick PET feed spacer with staggered turbulence grid structure. The widened flow channel slows down brine concentration polarization rate, reduces calcium carbonate, magnesium hydroxide and boron salt scaling probability on membrane surface; even under 48% high system recovery rate, regular chemical cleaning cycle can be extended to 3-4 months, cutting membrane maintenance frequency for offshore unmanned water-making equipment.

3. 99.85% minimum stabilized salt rejection specification

The cross-linked polyamide material of TSE20-400 undergoes secondary surface modification to strengthen ion charge repulsion effect, stabilized salt rejection reaches 99.85% with minimum guaranteed rejection 99.72%. When treating 35000ppm standard seawater, permeate TDS can be controlled below 120mg/L, far exceeding the basic desalination index of conventional SWRO membrane, reducing the burden of post-ion exchange resin equipment for industrial pure water production.

4. Wide temperature and pH tolerance membrane substrate

The reinforced polysulfone support layer of TSE20-400 resists hydrolysis and acid-base erosion, applicable feed temperature range covers 5℃-43℃, adapting to frigid polar ocean water and tropical gulf high-temperature seawater. Cleanable pH window expands to 1-13, compatible with common acidic citric acid and alkaline sodium hydroxide cleaning agents, without irreversible flux loss after repeated CIP online cleaning cycles.

5. Standardized 400 sq.ft large effective membrane area

Uniformly distributed membrane leaves expand total effective filtration area to 400 square feet, single element standard permeate flow reaches 24.6m³/d. Compared with 365sq.ft small-area seawater membrane of the same outer dimension, fewer membrane elements are required to achieve equal system water output, lowering overall equipment procurement cost and internal pipeline layout space of desalination skid.

Product Advantages

1. Cut secondary RO capital investment cost

For coastal municipal drinking water projects and marine aquaculture farms, TSE20-400’s high boron removal performance eliminates the necessity of full secondary seawater RO system configuration. Only partial secondary polishing treatment is required for extreme high-boron seawater, reducing membrane housing, high-pressure pump and energy recovery device purchasing quantity by 40%-60%, greatly compressing initial project construction budget for overseas engineering contractors.

2. Lower daily chemical consumption & operation cost

Without continuous alkali dosing to raise feed pH for boron rejection, TSE20-400 reduces sodium hydroxide chemical consumption by over 70% compared with traditional SWRO membrane. The wide anti-scaling flow channel extends cleaning cycle, cutting cleaning agent consumption and system downtime loss; comprehensive daily operating expense of the whole water treatment system drops by 18%-25% under long-term stable operation.

3. Stable long-cycle performance with low attenuation rate

The modified TFN composite layer of TSE20-400 weakens irreversible adsorption of organic boride compounds on membrane surface. After 12 months of continuous seawater operation, boron rejection only declines by less than 1.5%, salt rejection attenuation is controlled within 0.3%, far superior to ordinary SWRO membrane with 5%-8% performance drop in the same operation period, suitable for 24-hour uninterrupted running offshore platforms and island water supply stations.

4. Universal compatibility with global standard seawater equipment

TSE20-400 follows international 8040 standard dimension, perfectly interchangeable with mainstream global SWRO membrane models including FilmTec SW series, Toray TM series and LG SW series. No redesign of membrane skid, high-pressure pipeline or control system is needed during replacement, supporting fast spare parts replacement and project retrofitting for overseas after-sales maintenance teams.

5. Meet multi-country drinking water boron limit standards

The single-pass boron removal capacity of TSE20-400 satisfies strict water quality regulations of EU, GCC Middle East, Australia and Southeast Asian coastal countries. Permeate boron content stably meets WHO 0.5mg/L drinking water threshold without complex post-treatment, helping engineering suppliers pass local environmental and water quality acceptance inspection smoothly to avoid project delivery delays.

Application Fields

1. Large-scale municipal seawater desalination plants

Coastal city centralized water supply projects, remote island town water stations and coastal tourism resort water-making systems are core application scenarios of TSE20-400. High salt & boron removal rate ensures mass qualified tap water output, reduces multi-stage process layout of large desalination plants, and matches energy recovery turbine system to optimize overall plant power consumption efficiency for government infrastructure bidders.

2. Offshore marine operation water-making equipment

Offshore oil & gas drilling platforms, ocean-going cargo vessels, marine wind power stations and coastal naval supply stations adopt TSE20-400 as core filtration element. Its compact assembly dimension and long cleaning cycle adapt to limited space and inconvenient maintenance offshore environment, producing domestic drinking water and equipment cooling supplementary water with ultra-low boron residue to protect marine metal pipeline corrosion resistance.

3. Coastal industrial production water preparation

Coastal chemical synthesis factories, electroplating processing workshops, food and seafood deep processing plants rely on TSE20-400 to treat seawater into production pure water. Strict boron control avoids boron element contamination of chemical raw materials, electroplating coating defects and seafood product heavy metal index exceeding standards, replacing high-cost underground fresh water extraction for coastal industrial enterprises.

4. Marine aquaculture water circulation system

Large-scale offshore mariculture farms, coastal shrimp and fish breeding bases use TSE20-400 to purify seawater for breeding water replenishment. Excess boron in seawater will inhibit larval growth and reduce breeding survival rate; TSE20-400 controlled boron permeate stabilizes water quality environment, cutting breeding loss caused by unqualified water source and improving aquatic product yield.

5. Arid inland high-salinity brackish water resource recovery

Inland salt lake surrounding areas, desert coastal brackish water wells and mining high-salinity mine drainage reuse projects can deploy TSE20-400 to treat high-TDS salt water. Its dual advantages of high salt and boron rejection solve boron pollution risk of reclaimed irrigation water, turning unusable high-salinity brine into farm irrigation water and industrial reclaimed water in water-scarce inland regions.

FAQs

Q1: What is the difference between TSE20-400 and ordinary SWRO membrane in boron removal performance under natural seawater pH?

A1: Conventional seawater RO membrane only achieves 85%-90% boron rejection at pH7.5-8.0 natural seawater, requiring alkali dosing to lift pH above 10 for over 93% boron removal. TSE20-400's optimized TFN active layer hits ≥94% boron rejection directly at raw seawater pH, eliminating continuous alkali addition cost and pH adjustment equipment investment.

Q2: Can TSE20-400 be used for two-stage seawater desalination as primary stage membrane? Will it increase secondary membrane fouling risk?

A2: TSE20-400 is specially designed for first-stage primary filtration of two-stage SWRO systems. Its 34mil wide anti-scaling flow channel intercepts most boron salt and inorganic scaling precursors in advance, reducing scaling load of secondary membrane elements, and will not accelerate secondary membrane fouling under standard 40%-48% system recovery rate.

Q3: What is the maximum applicable seawater TDS range of TSE20-400? Is it suitable for Persian Gulf ultra-high salinity seawater?

A3: The rated feed TDS range of TSE20-400 covers 30000-42000ppm, perfectly matching Persian Gulf seawater with 38000-41000ppm average salinity. The membrane substrate can withstand maximum 6.9MPa operating pressure, stable desalination and boron rejection performance without obvious flux decline under ultra-high salt seawater long-term operation.

Q4: How long is the stable service life of TSE20-400 under normal seawater pretreatment? What will cause permanent boron rejection attenuation?

A4: With standard pretreatment SDI ≤5, regular online CIP cleaning, the stable service life reaches 3-5 years. Permanent boron rejection loss mainly occurs from strong oxidant (chlorine, ozone) exceeding 0.1ppm long-term contact, severe organic fouling without timely cleaning, and feed temperature continuously exceeding 45℃.

Q5: When selecting supporting pre-filter elements for TSE20-400 seawater system, what SDI and turbidity standards should be followed?

A5: To protect the high boron removal active layer of TSE20-400, feed water SDI must be controlled below 5, turbidity less than 1NTU. We recommend matching 5μm industrial precision water filter cartridge as terminal pre-filter to intercept suspended solids and colloids, avoiding surface pore blockage of polyamide active layer to maintain long-term boron interception efficiency.

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