Why does no one sell membrane cleaner?

[Baldmonkey]

Got into a very informative conversation a few months ago with one of my customers.
He works for veolia water treatment facilities and we got talking about RO membranes.

Now ever since I started using one for my pure water year's ago, I was lead to believe that the membranes only have a certain shelf life and need replacing when the output tdi creeps up or output in either pure or waste slows down.
Upon talking to this customer for a good while, he informed me that it's is extremely rare for a membrane to stop working or disintegrate, he kinda gave me a funny look when I mentioned that we are told by suppliers that a good long waste flush is enough to keep a good quality membrane working properly.

He informed me that it doesn't matter how long you leave your membrane flushing, it will always get a build up of organic and non organic deposits and they need to be cleaned with a high pH and low pH cleaner.

They have various banks and will clean a bank regularly in rotation to keep them in good working order.

If this is the case, why do no ro membrane suppliers sell a cleaning solution, is it just to get a new membrane sale?

Any further information would be greatly received

 

[Pjj]

Got into a very informative conversation a few months ago with one of my customers.
He works for veolia water treatment facilities and we got talking about RO membranes.

Now ever since I started using one for my pure water year's ago, I was lead to believe that the membranes only have a certain shelf life and need replacing when the output tdi creeps up or output in either pure or waste slows down.
Upon talking to this customer for a good while, he informed me that it's is extremely rare for a membrane to stop working or disintegrate, he kinda gave me a funny look when I mentioned that we are told by suppliers that a good long waste flush is enough to keep a good quality membrane working properly.

He informed me that it doesn't matter how long you leave your membrane flushing, it will always get a build up of organic and non organic deposits and they need to be cleaned with a high pH and low pH cleaner.

They have various banks and will clean a bank regularly in rotation to keep them in good working order.

If this is the case, why do no ro membrane suppliers sell a cleaning solution, is it just to get a new membrane sale?

Any further information would be greatly received

To be fair commercial membranes use by water companies are completely different to what we use , when we were in the cayman islands a few years ago we we got talking to a guy who worked at there desalination plant all water out there is produced by this method and there membrane design is totally different they are designed to be cleaned and re used ours are disposable , there versions cost tens of thousands per filter . As a side point the ones fitted on boats are very similar to ours and are also disposable.

 

[AW Services]

Got into a very informative conversation a few months ago with one of my customers.
He works for veolia water treatment facilities and we got talking about RO membranes.

Now ever since I started using one for my pure water year's ago, I was lead to believe that the membranes only have a certain shelf life and need replacing when the output tdi creeps up or output in either pure or waste slows down.
Upon talking to this customer for a good while, he informed me that it's is extremely rare for a membrane to stop working or disintegrate, he kinda gave me a funny look when I mentioned that we are told by suppliers that a good long waste flush is enough to keep a good quality membrane working properly.

He informed me that it doesn't matter how long you leave your membrane flushing, it will always get a build up of organic and non organic deposits and they need to be cleaned with a high pH and low pH cleaner.

They have various banks and will clean a bank regularly in rotation to keep them in good working order.

If this is the case, why do no ro membrane suppliers sell a cleaning solution, is it just to get a new membrane sale?

Any further information would be greatly received

I guess anything that's considered a cleaner is not found to help its efficiency or live

 

[WindyinNorfolk]

as above the commercial sector membranes are set up a little differently to our "home" efforts - going back a good few years and best I can remember is you can clean out a membrane by reverse flushing but I don't its its that effective and runs risks to the membrane

best way to look after it is change charcoal pre filter regularly and use the system daily

 

[Clean Pro]

I guess anything that's considered a cleaner is not found to help its efficiency or live

I’ve tried everything shown on YouTube. Once they start logging, impossible to resurrect frustrating

 

[Baldmonkey]

I have some hydrex 4502 and hydrex 4503 so will give them a whirl as the membranes output have both dropped so will report the findings

 

[kevinc250]

@Baldmonkey its a topic that's not reared its head in many years, yes you are correct in that a membrane can be cleaned with chemicals, for the life of me i can't remember the chemicals used but it can be done.
i think that you would need to buy an inline ph meter to do this (tds meters aren't worth a bean when it comes to this,its ph that matters) doug at daqua may be able to help with that,it has been done before but was kinda hushed up on forums, (not good for the suppliers you see).
from memory a 20l butt was used with a pump to circulate the chems inline ph meter and leaving the chems to stand for quite a while, forward/side and back flushing and re freshing the chems in the butt.
it may well be worthwhile taking a membrane to your customer with housing if you can and get him to explain a bit more on how they do it and just replicate that at home albeit on a smaller scale.
it will work although the suppliers may not like the drop in membrane sales and i think to be fair some windies i know i wouldn't trust with anything stronger than fairy yet alone acids and alkanlines.

 

[Baldmonkey]

@Baldmonkey its a topic that's not reared its head in many years, yes you are correct in that a membrane can be cleaned with chemicals, for the life of me i can't remember the chemicals used but it can be done.
i think that you would need to buy an inline ph meter to do this (tds meters aren't worth a bean when it comes to this,its ph that matters) doug at daqua may be able to help with that,it has been done before but was kinda hushed up on forums, (not good for the suppliers you see).
from memory a 20l butt was used with a pump to circulate the chems inline ph meter and leaving the chems to stand for quite a while, forward/side and back flushing and re freshing the chems in the butt.
it may well be worthwhile taking a membrane to your customer with housing if you can and get him to explain a bit more on how they do it and just replicate that at home albeit on a smaller scale.
it will work although the suppliers may not like the drop in membrane sales and i think to be fair some windies i know i wouldn't trust with anything stronger than fairy yet alone acids and alkanlines.

Hi kev
Sorry for the delay in replying, havent been on in a while. the chemicals i got were for low and high ph and he said to circulate them for approx an hour or 2 with warm water no hotter than 35 degrees. i have a vane booster pump and im in the middle of building an addition to my workshop to house everything work related, its coming along a treat at the minute but during the water rip out and reinstal im looking to clean the membrane and note figures for improvement/success.
i love stuff like this and have both the brain power and the time to tinker...have you any experience in these TAC water softeners that are completley salt free?
Cheers for the reply

 

[kevinc250]

hi mate, i'm not on here that often aswell, if i'm honest i have no experience of cleaning a membrane although i know it can be done, it was many years ago that i looked into it and whilst mine tend to pack up around the six year mark i just see it as a worthwhile investment and replace as its just not worth my while to try and clean the membrane (too many things to do both at home and socially) however, i do think that maybe i could try this say, around the three years mark to make the membrane last a whole lot longer and i guess would take an afternoon to do this.