Skip to content

WTP consultancy

WTP consultancy and water treatment plant troubleshooting

A water treatment plant has a narrower definition of success than an effluent plant: the water either meets the quality the process downstream needs, or it does not. When it does not, the cause is usually upstream of where everyone is looking.

The engagement, on one sheet
Investigate
the plant you have, as it runs
4 areas
an investigation looks at
Diagnosis
kept separate from what to do about it
Quoted
before any further work starts

Who arrives here

You are probably here because

If none of these is your situation, it is still worth a conversation: this list is not exhaustive.

  • Treated water quality is not meeting what the process downstream requires
  • Raw water has changed seasonally or permanently and the plant has not been re-established against it
  • Chemical consumption or media replacement frequency has risen
  • RO recovery is falling, or membranes are being replaced faster than they should be
  • Product water is being blended or rejected and nobody has established why

What an investigation looks at.

Lines of enquiry, not conclusions. Which of them matters for your plant is what the investigation establishes.

Line of enquiry01

Raw water and the design basis

  • Actual raw water quality against the basis the plant was designed to
  • Seasonal variation, and whether the plant has any way to respond to it
  • Source changes, blending, and bore water drawn alongside a surface source

Line of enquiry02

Clarification and filtration

  • Coagulation chemistry, dose, mixing and pH window against the actual raw water
  • Clarifier or tube settler loading and carry-over
  • Filter media depth, condition, channelling and backwash adequacy

Line of enquiry03

Softening, RO and demineralisation

  • Pretreatment adequacy, which is where most membrane problems are actually created
  • Normalised RO performance rather than raw readings: flux, salt passage and differential pressure
  • Scaling, fouling and biofouling, and which of the three the evidence supports
  • Antiscalant selection, CIP regime and recovery against the feed

Line of enquiry04

Storage, distribution and measurement

  • Contamination and stagnation between the plant and the point of use
  • Where quality is measured, and whether it is measured where it matters
  • Instrument calibration and the agreement between plant and laboratory results
What an engagement produces, level by level

Problems this usually arrives with.

Talk to an Expert

Bring us the symptom. We will find the cause.

Describe what the plant is doing, in your own words. You do not need to know the cause first.

Talk to an Expert

A specialist calls you and tells you the right next step and its cost.

Other services