Demonstrating Cost Effective Cleaning and Stable Membrane Performance with AST Advanced RO Membrane System Leveraging ZwitterCo Elevation RO for Landfill Leachate Treatment
AST is a Portugal-based environmental technology company with a strong reputation for delivering advanced solutions in water purification, effluent treatment, and waste recovery. Known for its expertise in treating complex wastewater, AST designs and delivers fully automated and compact membrane treatment systems enabling flexible deployment while meeting stringent environmental and regulatory standards. AST consistently adopts the most advanced technologies to achieve high performance, ensure environmental compliance, and maximize economic efficiency for its customers. AST’s multidisciplinary team specializes in landfill leachate treatment using direct spiral-wound RO membranes. They are a leader in leachate treatment in Brazil, Portugal, and Spain and have a record of successful installations across Europe, South America and Africa. For this project, AST deployed a fully automated and equipped two-pass RO system in standard 8040 format for a six-month demonstration at the customer’s site. The installation enabled the customer to operate a flexible, automated plant under varying feed conditions and evaluate system performance prior to full-scale deployment.
The Challenge
Landfill leachate is one of the most difficult wastewaters to treat, characterized by highly variable composition and elevated levels of salts, refractory organics, and trace contaminants. These conditions often result in membrane performance instability, frequent chemical cleaning, and reduced system recovery where operational reliability is essential. The client had extensive experience operating plate-type disc-tube membrane systems, but faced challenges with recurring organic fouling, short membrane lifespans, and frequent cleaning using costly formulated chemicals. To reduce operating costs and adopt a more modern membrane treatment system, the client began evaluating alternatives that could deliver greater reliability and lower the total cost of ownership. Any replacement system would need to meet strict performance objectives: permeate conductivity below 100 µS/cm, ammonia concentrations under 10 mg/L, membrane lifetimes exceeding one year, and a cleaning frequency of once per week or less.
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