OPERATORS MANUAL
ORION II
Orion II 500-10000 Operators
Page 23 of 95
Manual Part no: DOMAON0100 Issue A
April 2008
5 PROCESS DESCRIPTION
Refer to the Job Specific Process and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID).
The ORION range of units are integrated packaged systems which produce high purity water from a
potable water feed.
The ORION platform consists of a number of selectable options that are pre-determined at the sales
stage to meet the customer‟s requirements.
The options available are summarised in section 3.2 SYSTEM OVERVIEW and a brief description of
the operation of each follows.
5.1 PRE-TREATMENT SYSTEMS
5.1.1 Option 10 Non Hot Water Sanitisable Softeners and Filters
This pre-treatment option softens and filters the water prior to the RO section to prevent scaling or
fouling of the RO membranes. The Carbosoft option removes chlorine in addition to the above to
prevent oxidative damage of the RO membranes and CEDI if chosen.
Water enters the system and passes through a manual isolating valve (V10-01), a water flow rate
indicator (FI10-01), an inlet sample valve (V10-2) and a pressure indicator (PI10-01).
The softeners remove the total hardness from the feed water by exchanging Calcium and
Magnesium (Hardness Ions) in the feed water, with Sodium ions held on beads of ion exchange
resin contained within the softener vessels.
When all of the sodium ions in the resin bed have been exchanged the resin is exhausted and
cannot remove any further hardness from the feed water. It then requires regeneration by passing a
concentrated common salt (Sodium Chloride) solution through it to displace the hardness ions with
Sodium ions before it can remove further hardness from the water.
Salt solution (brine) is produced by dissolving high quality tablet salt in a salt saturator (TK15-01),
which should be located adjacent to the Orion skid. Units operating with a feed water hardness
above 300mg/l as CaCO
3
will require two saturators (TK15-01 & TK15-02). Tablet salt is added
manually to the saturator(s) and the dilution process is controlled automatically by the PLC and
softener control valves. Each tank is fitted with a low level switch (LS15-01 & LS15-02) which raises
an alarm (after an adjustable time period) in the event that the tablet salt level is low, but does not
stop any operating processes.
In normal operation the feed water passes through both softeners in series which provides a high
degree of softening of the feed water. Both softeners are, however sized to be individually capable
of taking the full service flow rate so that one unit can be taken out of production for regeneration
whilst the other unit provides soft water.
The softeners are fitted with automatic by-pass shut-off valves, (VA10-02 and VA10-04) to allow one
unit to remain operating whilst the other is being regenerated.
Each softener has a finite volumetric operating capacity that is dependent on the concentration of
hardness salts in the feed water. The hardness of the feed water should be measured on site, and
loaded into the PLC via the Touch Panel or Human Machine Interface (HMI). The PLC will then