Boron removal innovative solutions to selectively remove boron from water, wastewater and highly concentrated brines.
Boron removal is essential as high boron concentrations can be toxic to humans, plants, and aquatic life. Boron is a metalloid that is found in nature, with the majority of the Earth’s boron located in the ocean. Freshwater typically contains a small concentration of boron but can be significantly increased as a result of wastewater discharges or nearby industrial activity.
Elevated boron levels can also be present in groundwater as a result of leaching from rocks and soils containing boron compounds. Boron concentration limits below 2 mg/L are commonly set by regulatory bodies when discharging to natural waterways, and the World Health Organisation provides a guideline limit of 0.5 mg/L in drinking water.
Boron Removal Technologies
Boron removal from water can be difficult, with conventional filtration methods such as reverse osmosis (RO) often struggling to remove boron to low concentrations. This often results in an additional polishing step being required for boron when removal to low levels is required.
Ion exchange is an excellent choice to selectively remove boron, and there are a number of boron specific ion exchange resins on the market that have a high affinity for boron. The ion exchange technology we recommend for boron removal will depend on the feed concentration, target concentration and flowrate to be treated, and Clean TeQ Water can provide turn-key plants which use conventional batch ion exchange technology, or our CIF® (Continuous Ionic Filtration) technology.
Our CIF® technology is an excellent choice when boron needs to be removed to very low levels, or when large flowrates (>1 MLD) need to be treated. It can tolerate suspended solids in the feed, avoiding the need for solids filtration pre-treatment.
The improved adsorption from the counter-flow arrangement between the ion exchange resin and solution being treated reduces the inventory of ion exchange resin required, which is often a major capital cost component of boron removal plants. It also avoids requiring a large number of ion exchange vessels in series to reach low concentrations, and the continuous operation prevents frequent shutdowns for long regeneration cycles.
Optimised desorption when using CIF® can also reduce the waste volume generated by the process.
Benefits
SIMPLE OPERATION AND MAINTAINENANCE
CONSISTENT & EFFECTIVE BORON REMOVAL TO LOW CONCENTRATIONS
MINIMAL WASTE GENERATION
LOW CAPITAL AND OPERATING COSTS
Applications
Our boron removal solutions can be applied to a range of industries:
- Agriculture – removing boron from water to make it suitable for irrigating sensitive crops
- Mining Water – removal of boron to allow safe water discharge
- Industrial Water – elimination of boron from process water or wastewater to enable reuse or discharge
- Sea Water Desalination – post treatment of sea water reverse osmosis (RO) permeate to lower the boron concentration, or removal of boron from RO brine
- Brines and Geothermal Brines – selective boron from brines at high temperature with high background concentration of total dissolved solids
- Oil and Gas – selective removal of boron from produced water and refinery wastewater with tolerance to suspended solids and high total dissolved solids in the feed
Get in touch
Find out how we can help with your boron removal from water challenge using the contact form below.