Belmar called on the Compagnie hydrotechnique to order an osmosis unit for an oil customer in West Africa.
2m high and weighing nearly 800 kg, this reverse osmosis unit is actually a large watermaker.
Installed on board a ship, this machine produces fresh water from seawater.
Comparable to a karcher pump, the machine sucks up filtered seawater and sends it to the membranes of the watermaker at a pressure of around 60 bars (high pressure). The membrane behaves like the pores of the skin which dilate with the temperature and allow more or less large particles to pass (we speak of desalination by reverse osmosis). It thus blocks salt crystals, but also bacteria and certain viruses present in salt water.
On average, for 100 L of drawn water, a desalinator produces 10 L of fresh water.