MPUNGUVLEI PROPOSAL

Namibia Water Corporation Private Bag 13389 Windhoek Namibia

Report by: Water Quality Services

March 2012

PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Table of Contents

Water Treatment Services July 2011

1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 3 1.1 Background Information: .......................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Objective: .................................................................................................................................... 3 2. PROPOSED TREATMENT OPTION(s) ....................................................................................... 3 3. PROPOSED TREATMENT PLANT(S) ......................................................................................... 5 3.1 Borehole Blending (Only): .................................................................................................... 5 3.2 DT-RO Treatment with Raw Water Blending: ................................................................... 7 4. PROPOSED PILOT WORK ........................................................................................................... 9 4.1 Requirements: ............................................................................................................................ 9 5. WASTE DISPOSAL: ........................................................................................................................ 9 5.1 Design of Evaporation Ponds .................................................................................................. 9 5.2 Cost of Civil Works for Evaporation Ponds.......................................................................... 10 6. COST ESTIMATION ..................................................................................................................... 10 7. REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................... 11 APPENDIX: ......................................................................................................................................... 12

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

1. INTRODUCTION

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1.1 Background Information: The Mpunguvlei is a township in the Kavango area. The township is supplied with water from a number of boreholes in the vicinity. Two specific boreholes (WW22188 and WW30956) provide Class D (unacceptable) water, with high fluoride and sodium levels. These two boreholes of concern both 3 have a maximum abstraction rate of 4 m /hr. The current peak drinking water demand of the town is 3 7.8 m /hr. The total drinking water demand of the township over a period of 17 years would be 10.8 m /hr, this 3 includes the two boreholes of concern (each 4 m /hr) as well as the borehole that supplies water to 3 the school (WW100121) that supplies water at 3 m /hr. The fluoride concentration of the latter borehole (WW100121) is well within the acceptable standards for drinking water and would therefore not be included in the treatment option determination. It will remain as is. A new borehole provided by the Ministry of Agriculture, which has a capacity of 8 m /hr. This borehole has fluoride levels well below the standards. The standards require fluoride levels in drinking water not to exceed 1.5 mg/l. The water quality at the different boreholes in terms of fluoride content can be seen in Table 1 below. Table 1: Borehole Water Quality and Abstraction Rates
Boreholes Numbers WW100122 WW100121 WW30956 WW22188B Recommended Fluoride quality Fluoride quality abstraction rate in 2011 in 2006 (m3/h) 8 Not tested 0.7 3 4
3 3

0.8 4.3 5.1

0.7 3 6.1

In addition to the high fluoride levels, the sodium for the two boreholes of concern is 546 mg/l and 433 mg/l on average for boreholes WW22188 and WW30956 respectively. This is significantly higher than the acceptable standard which requires drinking water to be under 300 mg/l. The new borehole (8 m /hr) is a Class A borehole with a sodium level of 107 mg/l. 1.2 Objective: The aim of this document is to propose and cost a treatment option that would bring the fluoride and sodium levels to within the acceptable standards used at Namwater.
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2. PROPOSED TREATMENT OPTION(s) Reverse Osmosis (Disc Tube RO Module discussed below) and Ion Exchange are typical treatment options for removal of fluorides and sodium. The core characteristics of the two treatment options with regards to treating water at Mpunguvlei which has a relatively low TDS content is displayed in Table 2 below. Another option would be to blend existing substandard boreholes with available good quality boreholes. Such a treatment option would ultimately be the most cost effective choice to reduce fluoride and sodium levels. All options will nonetheless be explored in this paper.

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Table 2: Ion Exchange versus Reverse Osmosis

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Ion Exchange 1 Anion removal (F -) 1 2 Cation removal (Na+) 3 Strong Acid Regeneration 4 Fe-free Aluminium Sulphate Regeneration 5 Waste Disposal 6 Varying product water quality 7 Labour Intensive 8 Complex Design

DT-RO Module Citric Acid Cleaning 2 Brine/Waste Disposal 3 Constant Product Water Quality 4 Ease of Operations 5 Ease of Maintenance 6 nonselectiveness 7 Not Labour Intensive 8 Ease of Design

It is clear from Table 2 that the DT-RO Module seems to be the preferred option for treating water at Mpunguvlei. It should be noted that a cost comparison could not readily be performed. It is however assumed that the two treatment options would be in the same order of magnitude regarding costs. Further preferences for the DT-RO Module are elaborated below. In 2010 and 2011 the Water Quality Services Division in Namwater conducted two distinct Reverse Osmosis Pilot Operations at the Epukiro Pos 3 settlement in the east of Namibia and at the town of Bethani in the south of Namibia. The pilot rig at Epukiro was used primarily to remove nitrates and hardness. It did however prove to be equally effective in reducing all the other substandard parameters as well. The Epukiro pilot rig was initially shipped to Namibia from Senegal where a PhD candidate was performing similar tests, with the aim of removing high levels of fluorides in that water. He found that by using the DT-RO Module, at a recovery of 66%, one can obtain fluoride rejections in access of 98% for waters containing fluorides of up to 20 mg/l. He further found that by increasing the recovery to 80 % the fluoride rejection dropped to 95 %. The same candidate provided the training at Epukiro Pos 3. In February 2012, Namwater managed to acquire ownership of the DT-RO Module pilot rig, presently still in Epukiro Pos 3. Given the small footprint and therefore ease of transportation of the pilot rig together with the historical information regarding its performance, it is therefore proposed that the pilot rig in Epukiro be used at the Mpunguvlei water treatment scheme to test the viability of implementing a similar plant there. In addition to the above, the Mpunguvlei water has a much lower TDS value than the waters at Epukiro and at the scheme in Senegal and should therefore provide much better recovery and much less fouling and/or scaling of the membranes. As a consequence, the membrane life could be expected to be substantially prolonged.

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

3. PROPOSED TREATMENT PLANT(S) 3.1 Borehole Blending (Only):

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This treatment method is simply a method of mixing substandard borehole water(s) with good quality borehole water(s) into a final blend stream that is of a better quality than the borehole(s) with substandard quality as well as within the quality required by water quality standards. In the Mpungu Vlei case, boreholes WW22188B (4 m3/hr) and WW30956 (4 m3/hr) is of substandard quality regarding its fluoride and sodium content. The new borehole WW100122 (8 m 3/hr) is of a good quality. The borehole blending treatment option includes three different scenarios or alternatives (that is discussed below) to ultimately reduce the fluoride and sodium concentrations to within the newly proposed Namibian Water Quality Standards, which is 1.5 mg/l for fluoride and 300 mg/l for sodium. Currently, the two 4 m3/hr substandard boreholes are being pumped into an elevated reservoir (or tank). This reservoir will be referred to as the existing mixing tank for the two boreholes. Water will be extracted from this mixing tank and further mixed with the 8 m3/hr good quality (0.7 mg/l) borehole water, to produce a blend stream that will satisfy the peak demand as well as the pre-set water quality required. A pre-set water quality of 1.3 mg/l fluoride is chosen as the driving force behind all the calculations, since fluoride is the limiting parameter i.e the sodium would consequently be reduced to within the required standards if the fluoride is reduced to the pre-set water quality. This pre-set water quality also represents a value that is operationally safe with respect to the 1.5 mg/l required by the water quality standards. NOTE: The peak water demand forecast (Table 4) shows that the current peak demand is 7.8 m3/hr and the peak demand after 17 years would increase to 10.8 m3/hr. The first blending scenario (Figure 2) shows a blend product stream equal to the current peak demand of 7.8 m3/hr. This requires an extraction of 1.17 m3/hr from the mixing tank and a 6.63 m3/hr flow from the new borehole.
4 m3/hr 5.1 mg F/l

WW22188B

1 8 m3/hr 4.7 mg F/l

WW30956

4 m3/hr 4.3 mg F/l

Mixing Tank (Existing)

Forecasted 20 hr Peak Demand 1.17 m /hr Required

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Year 2010/11 7.8 1.3 m3/hr mg F/l

6.63 m3/hr Required (NEW) WW100122 8 m3/hr 0.7 mg F/l

Figure 1: Blending Scenario 1

As a second scenario with the same set-up as scenario 1, the system will only be able to satisfy the future peak demand for the next 7-8 years (i.e up until 2019/20, at 9.4 m3/hr, from Table 4) if the new borehole is stretched so that it could run at its maximum capacity of 7.99 m 3/hr. This new

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Water Treatment Services

July 2011 borehole would therefore run at maximum capacity for over a year (i.e around the years 2018/2019).
4 m3/hr 5.1 mg F/l

WW22188B

1 8 m3/hr 4.7 mg F/l

WW30956

4 m3/hr 4.3 mg F/l

Mixing Tank
Forecasted 20 hr Peak Demand 1.41 m3/hr Required Year 9.4 1.3 7.99 m3/hr Required 2019/20 m3/hr mg F/l

(NEW) WW100122

8 m3/hr 0.7 mg F/l

Figure 2: Blending Scenario 2

For scenario 3 (Figure 4), if we abandon the safe pre-set fluoride product concentration value of 1.3 mg/l for the 1.5 mg/l fluoride concentration required by the standards, blend water can be produced up until the year 2023/2024 (from Table 4), which is 11-12 years from today. However, this would mean that we would be producing water at exactly the required fluoride concentration. This set-up runs the risk that should the plant experience concentration fluctuations, the fluoride concentration could increase to above the required standards.
4 m3/hr 5.1 mg F/l

WW22188B

1 8 m3/hr 4.7 mg F/l

WW30956

4 m3/hr 4.3 mg F/l

Mixing Tank
Forecasted 20 hr Peak Demand 2 m3/hr Required Year 10 1.5 8 m3/hr Required 2023/24 m3/hr mg F/l

(NEW) WW100122

8 m /hr 0.7 mg F/l

Figure 3: Blending Scenario 3

Taking the above scenarios into consideration, it is therefore recommended that should the blending treatment option be implemented, scenario 2 should initially be used followed by scenario 3. This would mean that for the first 7 years the system would be running on safe mode (1.3 mg/l fluoride in blend stream) and switch to the borderline (1.5 mg/l Fluoride) system for the next 4 years up until the year 2023/24 (from Table 4). The above recommendation would require an additional reservoir that could catch the blended product water. This would allow the system to be set at a set 1.4 m3/hr from the mixing tank and a full capacity operation of the new borehole, over the course of the initial 7 years. Thereafter, only the mixing tank extraction should be increased to 2 m3/hr. 6|Page

PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Water Treatment Services July 2011

3.2 DT-RO Treatment with Raw Water Blending: 3 A borehole feed flow rate of 8 m /hr to a proposed plant will be the driving force behind the calculations to ultimately determine what the product water quality and flow rates will be when the DTRO system is used at Mpunguvlei. The PFD for the proposed plant, including flow rates and water quality with regards to fluorides and sodium is shown below in Figure 1.

Figure 4: PFD of Proposed DT-RO Plant at Mpunguvlei A maximum set recovery of 75 % would be used because of the low fouling/scaling tendency of the Mpunguvlei water. Given the rejection results for sodium and fluoride obtained in Senegal and Epukiro, the sodium rejection would be fixed at 93% and the fluoride rejection would be fixed at 96%. The sodium rejection rates at Epukiro and the fluoride rejection rates in Senegal were therefore used to forecast the rejection rates at the proposed plant. It is assumed that the lower TDS value of the Mpunguvlei water in comparison to the Epukiro and Senegalese waters will not affect the rejection rates.

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Table 3: Relationship between Feedwater salinity, Brine salinity and Recovery
Brine TDS(mg/l) at different Recoveries 70 65.88 65 60 55 50.59 3.33 33333 30000 26667 23333 20000 16667 13797 2.93 29308 26377 23446 20516 17585 14654 12131 2.86 28571 25714 22857 20000 17143 14286 11826 2.50 25000 22500 20000 17500 15000 12500 10348 2.22 22222 20000 17778 15556 13333 11111 9198 8889 6667 6351 4444 3111 2.02 20237 18213 16190 14166 12142 10119 8376 8095 6071 5784 4047 2833 2024 1012

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% Recovery Concentration Factor Feed TDS = 10,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 9,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 8,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 7,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 6,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 5,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 4,139 mg/l Feed TDS = 4,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 3,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 2,858 mg/l Feed TDS = 2,000 mg/l Feed TDS = 1400 mg/l

83.29 5.98 59829 53846 47863 41880 35897 29914 24763 23931 17949 17099 11966 8376

80 5.00 50000 45000 40000 35000 30000 25000 20695

75 4.00 40000 36000 32000 28000 24000 20000 16556

50 2.00 20000 18000 16000 14000 12000 10000 8278 8000 6000 5716 4000 2800 2000 1000

45 1.82 18182 16364 14545 12727 10909 9091 7525 7273 5455 5196 3636 2545 1818 909

40 1.67 16667 15000 13333 11667 10000 8333 6898 6667 5000 4763 3333 2333 1667 833

35 1.54 15385 13846 12308 10769 9231 7692 6368 6154 4615 4397 3077 2154 1538 769

30 1.43 14286 12857 11429 10000 8571 7143 5913 5714 4286 4083 2857 2000 1429 714

20000 16000 13333 11723 11429 10000 15000 12000 10000 8792 8571 7500 14290 11432 9527 8376 8166 7145 10000 8000 6667 5862 5714 5000 7000 5600 4667 4103 4000 3500

Feed TDS = 1,000 mg/l 5983 5000 4000 3333 2931 2857 2500 2222 Feed TDS = 500 mg/l 2991 2500 2000 1667 1465 1429 1250 1111 NOTE: The shaded figures ( 15000 mg/l) will cause rapid fouling/scaling in the DT-RO Module

Table 3 (courtesy of El-Manharawy and Hafez, 2001) illustrates the effects of feed water TDS, for given recovery rates, on corresponding brine TDS values. The accuracy of the table is confirmed in the DT-RO Pilot Plant Operations at Epukiro Pos 3: Namibia Sub-standard Water Quality Improvements report. The table shows that for a feed TDS of 1400 mg/l, a brine TDS of approximately 8376 mg/l can be expected at a recovery of 80 %, which would be well below the rapid fouling/scaling region for a reverse osmosis system ( 15 000 mg/l brine TDS). It is however proposed to run the DT-RO Module at a safer recovery of 75 % with the brine TDS at 5600 mg/l at a feed TDS of 1400 mg/l. This would allow the system to be used over a much longer period i.e. prolong the membrane life. It will also mean that should a higher recovery be needed the plant recovery could be increased to 80% while not compromising the integrity of the system. These proposed plant conditions and performances will yield a production rate of 6.4 m /hr. The peak demand table below (courtesy of Water Supply) shows that the proposed plant will be able to produce enough acceptable drinking water up until 2019 (for a total of 7 years). The product water from the 3 plant will be added to the existing 3 m /hr borehole to be able to establish the 7 year running period of the proposed plant.
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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

Annual Sales m 3/annu m 37 067 Average Day in Annual Average Daily Peak Month 20hr Production Production Production peak m 3/annum m 3/day m 3/day daily m 3

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Table 4: Forecasted Drinking Water Peak Demand of the Mpunguvlei Township over 17 years

Year 20010/11 2011/12 2012/13 2013/14 2014/15 2015/16 2016/17 2017/18 2018/19 2019/20 2020/21 2021/22 2022/23 2023/24 2024/25 2025/26 2026/27

37 808 38 565 39 336 40 123 40 925 41 743 42 578 43 430 44 298 45 184 46 088 47 010 47 950 48 909 49 887 50 885

38 179 38 943 39 721 40 516 41 326 42 153 42 996 43 856 44 733 45 627 46 540 47 471 48 420 49 389 50 376 51 384 52 412

104.6 106.7 108.8 111.0 113.2 115.5 117.8 120.2 122.6 125.0 127.5 130.1 132.7 135.3 138.0 140.8 143.6

156.9 160.0 163.2 166.5 169.8 173.2 176.7 180.2 183.8 187.5 191.3 195.1 199.0 203.0 207.0 211.2 215.4

7.8 8.0 8.2 8.3 8.5 8.7 8.8 9.0 9.2 9.4 9.6 9.8 9.9 10.1 10.4 10.6 10.8

4. PROPOSED PILOT WORK It is anticipated that the Pilot Rig currently in Epukiro be transported to Mpunguvlei to conduct a pilot test on the water, to confirm the viability of using such a plant at the Mpunguvlei water scheme. 4.1 Requirements: 1. Transportation of DT-RO Pilot Rig to Mpunguvlei 2. Chemicals that will be used for testing, must be made available 3. Repair leakages of the Pilot Rig 4. Perform an overall maintenance of the Pilot Rig 5. Electricity must be made available for the DT-RO Module 6. Module must be housed under roof 7. Operator training must be done 8. Holding tanks as well as piping must be made available 9. Brine disposal options should be considered

5. WASTE DISPOSAL: 5.1 Design of Evaporation Ponds 3 The proposed plant at Mpunguvlei will produce a brine flow rate of 1.7 m /hr. This brine will be routed to two evaporation ponds situated appropriately close to the plant. The two ponds will be used interchangeably to allow for maximum evaporation during the year. The required area of one of the ponds can be calculated using the general material balance equation below. The calculations will include the brine flowing into the ponds, the portion of water evaporated as well as the assumed annual rain downfall. Material Balance: The generation term will equal zero as there will be no generation of material inside the ponds. The above generalized equation will yield the following:

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

( Rearranging, )

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Assuming a PAN evaporation rate of 2900 mm/year for the Mpunguvlei area and a maximum pond depth of 2 meters, gives the following pond area calculations:

Since there will be two identical ponds adjacent to each other, their area will both be 3264 m . 5.2 Cost of Civil Works for Evaporation Ponds Assumptions: Cost of Civil Works is N$ 50/m Method of construction is landfill Number of ponds = 2 Distance between ponds = 3 m Assuming rectangular block type ponds
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Volume of earth to be removed: The pond depth is 2 m and the calculated cross-sectional area is 3264 m . This means that a total of 3 3 6528 m volume of earth should be removed for one pond and 13 056 m volume of earth for both the 3 ponds. The cost estimate for constructing the two ponds will therefore be in the order of N$ 50/m x 3 13 056 m = N$ 652 800.
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6. COST ESTIMATION For the Epukiro Plant Proposal at an overall recovery of 75.57% and a product water flow rate of 5.6 m /hr (drinking water demand), the capital cost was given by Pall Company to be N$ 1.8 million (formal quotation, excluding Evap Ponds). The capacity of the proposed plant at Epukiro is 6.3 m /hr (i.e DT-RO throughput). The proposed water production for the Mpunguvlei water scheme is 6.5 m /hr, with a DT-RO throughput of 6.5 m /hr. The Mpunguvlei proposed plant capacity is therefore in the same order-ofmagnitude as that of the proposed plant at Epukiro Pos 3. This means that the cost of the two plants would be equivalent. The much better quality feed water to the plant at Mpunguvlei will consequently further reduce the cost of such a plant, but that issue will not be explored in the cost estimation of this document.
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The proposed plant at Mpunguvlei would hence be in the order of N$ 1.8 million (excluding Evaporation Ponds). Further operational costs would be negligible due to low chemical usage and ease of operations of the DT-RO Module. The total estimated cost of the proposed plant including the evaporation ponds would thus sum to N$ 2,452,800.00. NOTE: This is only a conservative cost estimate.

7. REFERENCES 1. J. A. Beukes et al, DT-RO Pilot Plant Operations at Epukiro Pos 3: Namibia Sub-Standard Water Quality Improvement, Namwater, 2011 2. C.K.Diawara et al., Performance of Nanofiltration (NF) and Low Pressure Reverse Osmosis (LPRO) Membranes in the Removal of Fluorine and Salinity from Brackish Drinking Water, Senegal, Journal of Water Resource and Protection, November 2011, 3, 912-917.

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PROPOSAL FOR NEW WATER TREATMENT PLANT FOR MPUNGUVLEI

APPENDIX:

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Borehole No Sample Date pH Turb NTU Cond mS/m TDS Calc. Na in mg/l K in mg/l Ca as CaCO3 Mg as CaCO3 SO4 in mg/l NO3 as N in mg/l F in mg/l Cl in mg/l

WW100122 20/02/2006 8.1 19.8

64.2

430.14

107

12

67.5

108.3

23

<0.5

0.7

20

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