Desalination using sea and brackish water reverse osmosis (SWRO and BWRO) membrane technology has become a viable option for the development of new regional water supplies. Reverse Osmosis (RO) is also a widely accepted technology for industrial water purification. Effective mineral and salt removal converts previously unusable waters into a high-purity resource for industrial process uses.

RO technology is used to remove salt from seawater through the use of a plastic membrane. RO involves the reversal of flow through a membrane from a high salinity, or concentrate, solution to the high purity, or "permeate", stream on the other side of the membrane. As the pressure loss in the membrane is very low, the concentrate flow, which is under high pressure, can be directed through a turbine which is coupled to a high pressure pump. Thus a considerable amount of the energy that is otherwise lost can be recovered.

The most important factor in seawater desalination with Reverse Osmosis (RO) is the pre-treatment that protects the membrane against organic fouling, mineral scaling and chemical degradation. It includes all the necessary treatment steps ahead of the reverse osmosis plant. It determines plant life time and minimises chemical cleaning and membrane replacement. It has a direct impact on plant performance. UNIHA applies conventional filtration or ultrafiltration (UF), dissolved air floatation (DAF), water softening or acidification and disinfection before feeding water to the RO plant.

UNIHA Reverse Osmosis (RO) systems deliver high performance at the lowest life-cycle costs. Our pre-engineered systems allow fast delivery and are built with high-quality components designed to meet the customer’s specific requirements. They are assembled at the customer’s facilities under the supervision of UNIHA’s highly qualified engineers and are handed over to the customer ready to run with all filters, membranes, pumps, piping, controls and automation. Additionally, UNIHA provides a full line of membrane treatment chemicals to enhance membrane performance once the equipment is operating at your site.