Innovative water treatment design for turning wastewater treatment effluent into boiler makeup water

The Pinellas County Resource Recovery Facility (PCRRF) is a 3,150 tons per day mass burn facility located in Pinellas Park, Florida. Due to local water use restrictions and increasing costs for potable water supplies in central Florida, Pinellas County has continuously sought to reduce potable water usage at its facilities. The PCRRF's boiler makeup water system represented a prime target. Accordingly, a makeup water pretreatment system using reclaimed water from a sewage treatment plant as its source, has been installed upstream of the existing reverse osmosis membrane and mixed bed polishing demineralizers. The pre-treatment system consists of a micro-filtration module, followed by a reverse osmosis module, which results in an overall configuration of micro-filtration, two stage reverse osmosis, and polishing demineralization. The system has been operational for approximately six months, and is producing excellent quality makeup water for the facility boilers. This paper will describe the pre-treatment process and its operational results to date.