Turning the Page on Water Treatment at Doubletree Paper Mill

Water treatment is an essential part of production in the pulp and paper industry with plants commonly requiring around 20,000 gallons of water per metric ton of paper. Conventional reverse osmosis (RO) systems have been used to treat water used in the manufacturing process. However, these can be high maintenance and energy-intensive.

A DesaliTec™ ReFlex RO system from DuPont Water Solutions has now been deployed at the Doubletree Paper Mill in Arizona to improve the efficiency of their water system operations. Treatment is a necessary requirement at the plant as groundwater is pumped to the plant from a well, which has high chloride levels, high phosphate concentrations, significant levels of geothermal activity, and high levels of bacteria. 

By replacing its existing RO system with DesaliTec™ ReFlex RO, the plant was able to increase energy efficiency and reduce its chemical usage. Most importantly, the new installation helped improve water recovery levels to 75% to 90% while significantly reducing cleaning requirements. 

“Any time you don’t have to do cleaning, it saves you on labor because cleaning is always a supervised, involved activity,” said Dr. Asif Hasan, Environmental Engineer at Doubletree Paper Mill. “We were doing three biocides each week, and we were doing high pH cleaning every other week. With the new DesaliTec unit, we did not have to do cleaning. I would recommend DesaliTec RO to anyone who is trying to achieve a high recovery rate and maintain good quality in their finished product water.”

Watch the video on how DesaliTec™ ReFlex RO helped the Doubletree Paper Mill to conserve water and lowers operational costs.