Selex acquires reverse-osmosis plant from Elga

Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems has acquired a reverse-osmosis plant from Elga Process Water for a new water-treatment system.

Procurement and project management of the installation was carried out by ISS Coflex, which manages the engineering facilities at Selex's Southampton site.

Part of the Selex Galileo group, Selex Sensors and Airborne Systems - a manufacturer of infrared detectors for civil and military applications - produces sensors for high-performance thermal imaging.

This type of equipment is intended to enable the precision machining of components and cleanliness in terms of both manufacturing and assembly.

This is where the water treatment system is needed.

Selex has always used deionised water for rinsing components, but the water-treatment system was reaching the end of its life and the reverse-osmosis unit needed replacing.

Elga's system consists of a pre-treatment system and a Maxi 14-2000 EP reverse-osmosis unit designed to produce deionised water of conductivity better than 25uS/cm.

Pre-treatment is by a Selectron 80 automatic softener to remove the calcium and magnesium from the hard Southampton mains water so that the reverse-osmosis membrane is safe from scale, followed by a C960 service exchange carbon filter to remove free chlorine, which would otherwise attack the membranes.

The Maxi 14-2000 EP reverse-osmosis unit uses the latest generation of membranes to reject 98 per cent of dissolved salts and more than 99 per cent of dissolved organic and colloidal matter.

The resulting permeate quality is said to be far better than that produced by the old plant and the lower operating pressure equates to less energy consumption for the pumps.

Additionally, the new plant is substantially smaller than the original so it has a smaller environmental footprint.

The water-treatment system is protected by Elga's service team of field-based technicians.

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