1. Background.
Under field conditions, the supply of drinking water for the army and infusion water for the medical team is an important part of the modern logistics support army. In addition to relying on the rear to supply the army, most need to be prepared by the army. The available water sources are rivers and lakes where the battlefield is located where most may even be contaminated by nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare agents.
Therefore, a water purification system is one of the necessary equipment for field army water supply support, and water purification technology plays a decisive role in the development of a water purification system. Water purification technology has experienced water treatment methods such as “thermal distillation”, “ion exchange” and “electrodialysis”. Since the mid-1970s, with the maturity, popularization, and application of reverse osmosis water purification technology, various countries have mainly adopted reverse osmosis water purification technology in military water purification technology.
2. Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Technology.
The reverse osmosis water purification process must have two conditions: first, there must be a selective semi-permeable membrane with high selectivity and high permeability; second is that the operating pressure must be higher than the osmotic pressure of the solution.
This technology can not only purify any freshwater, brackish water, or seawater but also remove the pollution of nuclear radiation, biological and chemical warfare agents. The RO water purification system has the characteristics of simple structure, simple operation and maintenance, multi-purpose, fast water purification, and good treatment effect. Therefore, the use of reverse osmosis water purification systems has become the main equipment of military water purification systems at home and abroad.
3. Application and Types of Military RO Water Purification System.
NEWater has developed a variety of military reverse osmosis water purification systems, which are fully equipped, and it has formed a series and standardized system. It mainly includes navy portable reverse osmosis water purification system, army containerized reverse osmosis water purification system, air force mobile reverse osmosis water purification unit, etc.
3.1. Navy Portable Reverse Osmosis Water Purification System.
The current water purification system needs to be powered on before it can be used, but it can not provide a power supply in the field, or it is inconvenient to carry because of its large volume and weight, or it can achieve the purpose of water production through pipeline water pressure. Therefore, it is urgent to provide a water purification system that can be used outdoors and can be easily carried.
NEWater navy portable reverse osmosis water purification system is designed for the navy and can be installed on standard military ships. The design raw water of the system is seawater, which is mainly used for seawater desalination.
The booster pump is not only used for filtering water supply of multi-media filter and simple filter, but also backwashing of multi-media filter and chemical cleaning of reverse osmosis components. Seawater desalination reverses osmosis membrane module used in the reverse osmosis system.
As with other systems, the cartridge filter and backwash multi-media filter shall be replaced according to the increase of pressure difference. In the backwashing process, backwash each multi-media filter in turn, and the discharge liquid of the first two multi-media filters is used to backwash the third multi-media filter. The flow rate of backwashing liquid and the length of the filter are related to the water temperature. When the pressure drop through the reverse osmosis vessel is 10% higher than the initial value, the reverse osmosis system must be cleaned.
The process flow of naval system reverse osmosis water purification system is Raw Water Pump โ Booster Pump โ Flocculant Pump โ Multi-Media Filter โ Scale Inhibitor Pump โ Cartridge Filter โ High-Pressure Pump โ Reverse Osmosis System.
NEWater has carried out practical verification on the system and continuously carried out seawater desalination tests, which shows that this prototype water purification system has good purification and desalination performance, but the workload for seawater desalination will be doubled. The system can purify more than 10000 liters of freshwater or brackish water per hour for freshwater polluted by nature or nuclear, chemical, and biological agents, and more than 70000 liters of seawater polluted by nuclear, chemical, and biological agents per hour.
The system has the advantages of simple structure and simple operation. It can take water locally, carry out coarse filtration, manually pressurize and reverse osmosis purification to obtain purified water. The whole system is mechanical without any power demand and zero water pressure. As long as you manually press the hand pressure rod, you can supply pressurized water to the reverse osmosis purification system, which greatly meets the needs of navy survival guaranteed to their health.
3.2. Army Containerized Reverse Osmosis Water Purification System.
The army containerized reverse osmosis water purification system is a class I reverse osmosis water purification system approved by NEWater and it can also be standard equipment. The system is designed to be used in nuclear war and can withstand the pollution of NBC poison. Although the system is designed to operate at temperature limits, cold jackets should be used when the temperature is below 0 ยฐ C. The designed raw water of the system is fresh water and brackish water or seawater polluted by nuclear, biochemical agents.
The added component in the pretreatment process is the cyclone separator located at the raw water pump, which is used to remove large suspended particles such as sand and large ash, and the basket screen is used to remove large particles that may damage the medium filter. The containerized type reverse osmosis water purification system is composed of a series of diesel engine-driven centrifugal raw water pumps, dosing systems, composite media filters, booster pumps, filter cartridges, high-pressure pumps, generators set, reverse osmosis membranes, and other systems.
The process flow of the army containerized reverse osmosis water purification system is as follows: Raw Water Pump โ Cyclone Separator โ Flocculant Pump โ Booster Pump โ Basket filter โ Medium Filter โ Scale Inhibitor Pump โ Cartridge Filter โ High-Pressure Pump โ Reverse Osmosis System โ Chlorine Pump โ Storage Tank โ Distribution Pump.
When the pressure difference increases, the control panel gives an alarm indicating that the operator can replace the simple filter, clean the basket net or backwash the medium filter. The chemical cleaning of the reverse osmosis system shall be carried out as scheduled according to the operation time, feed water conditions, and reverse osmosis pressure difference. When the water quality and flow through the liquid is reduced, it is also necessary to clean. The treatment effect has reached the water supply standard of field drinking water in the army.
At the same time, the system has good flexibility, and it can be configured in a standard container, and easily transported by truck, train, or aircraft. It has a large water supply and low energy consumption and is suitable for the field water supply of a first-class army. The installation and withdrawal time shall not exceed 90min. Only three soldiers are required for deployment and only one person is required for operation. The system can work under any climatic conditions and it is very suitable for use in desert areas. The system has become a typical reverse osmosis water purification system in the army.
3.3. Air Force Mobile Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit.
The air force mobile reverse osmosis water purification unit developed by NEWater is a light and movable water purification unit for highly mobile airborne military transportation. At present, it has been widely used in overseas training exercises and actual combat water purification at home and abroad. The design requires that the unit can adapt to various water sources, such as freshwater, saltwater, or seawater. It may also be highly polluted, turbid, or even water polluted by radioactive, biological, or chemical warfare agents.
The process is similar to that of portable and containerized types. The main equipment includes a pretreatment system, which is composed of a chemical agent system added with cationic polymer flocculant and scale inhibitor, multi-media filter, and barrel filter.
The reverse osmosis system consists of a high-pressure pump and reverse osmosis equipment. The reverse osmosis equipment consists of four reverse osmosis membrane modules connected in series into a group, and the two groups are connected in parallel, with a total of eight reverse osmosis membrane modules. The post-treatment system disinfects the effluent of the unit with calcium hypochlorite and it can be drunk.
The process flow of air force mobile reverse osmosis water purification unit is as follows: Raw Water Pump โ Flocculant Pump โ Scale Inhibitor Pump โ Multi-Media Filter โ Citric Acid Pump โ Booster pump โ Simple Filter โ High-Pressure Pump โ Reverse Osmosis Unit โ Chlorine Pump โ Storage Tank โ Distribution Pump.
During the initial installation, the concentrated water of the unit is collected as backwashing water for the medium filter and the unit components. Backwashing is required after the multi-media filter reaches the predetermined pressure drop or operates, or it shall also be carried out during a shutdown. According to the increase of pressure, the filter element of the cartridge filter can be replaced.
When the raw water is polluted by the NBC agent, activated carbon adsorption and ion exchange units are added after the reverse osmosis effluent. The membrane module of the unit is cleaned with citric acid or surfactant. When the pressure exceeds 20% of the initial differential pressure, the components of the unit must be cleaned. When the water flow rate or water quality decreases significantly or exceeds the maximum differential pressure, chemical cleaning is also required.
The unit includes a generator that can be airdropped. The power of the whole system is supplied by a diesel generator installed at the rear of the trailer. The utility model has the advantages of a lightweight, mobility, and good maneuverability, and it is suitable for division-level units.
NEWater’s military reverse osmosis water purification system has gradually formed the characteristics of serialization, standardization, modularization, integration, and multi-function. If you have any requirements for a military RO water purification system, simply send an email to info@newater.com. NEWater can help you quickly and effectively improve the water supply security of your military water purification system to ensure an advanced advantage in future field operations under high-tech conditions.