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Boron Removal Water Treatment Companies
Boron removal for desalinated and industrial water: second-pass reverse osmosis at elevated pH, boron-selective ion exchange resins, and blending strategies.
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Buyer's Guide
The buyer's guide to boron removal water treatment
Removing Boron from Desalinated and Industrial Water
Boron is the reason a desalination plant that meets every other specification can still fail its permit. Seawater carries about 4.4 mg/L of it, WHO sets a guideline of 2.4 mg/L, and the EU sets a parametric value of 1.5 mg/L that rises to 2.4 mg/L only where desalinated water is the predominant supply. The whole treatment problem is one acid base equilibrium: below about pH 9 boron exists as uncharged boric acid, which a reverse osmosis membrane sees almost as it sees water and passes; above pH 9.2 it converts to the borate anion, which the same membrane rejects.
That single fact sets the process. A single RO pass on seawater typically leaves 0.8 to 1.5 mg/L of boron in the permeate, which clears the WHO guideline but not the standard EU value. The conventional answer is a partial second pass on the first-pass permeate with caustic dosed to pH 9.5 or above, where rejection climbs sharply, followed by re-acidification and remineralisation. The alternative is a boron-selective ion exchange resin polishing the permeate, which avoids the high-pH operation and the scaling risk that comes with it, at the cost of a regeneration cycle and its waste. Blending with a low-boron source, where one exists, remains the cheapest answer of all and is worth pricing before either.
Boron matters beyond drinking water. Its irrigation threshold sits near 0.7 mg/L for sensitive crops, well below every drinking water limit, so a reuse scheme feeding agriculture faces a tighter target than the same water going to a tap. Conventional treatment, coagulation, filtration, lime softening and activated carbon, removes essentially none of it, so a plant with a boron problem cannot solve it anywhere but at the membrane or the resin. Aguato lists providers who work on all three routes, and on the borate chemistry behind them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does reverse osmosis struggle with boron?
At the pH of seawater, about 8.1, boron is present as boric acid, an uncharged, monomeric, small molecule. RO membranes reject ions largely by charge, so an uncharged species of that size passes far more readily than the dissolved salts around it. Raise the pH above the pKa of about 9.2 and boric acid converts to the borate anion, which carries a charge and is rejected like any other ion. Everything a plant does about boron follows from that one equilibrium.
Second pass at high pH, or boron-selective resin?
A high-pH second pass is the established route and adds no consumable beyond caustic and acid, but running permeate above pH 9.5 raises the scaling risk on the second-pass membranes and adds a re-acidification and remineralisation step. Boron-selective resin polishes the permeate at neutral pH, is simpler to operate, and is usually preferred when the boron gap to close is small or intermittent, but it brings a regeneration cycle and a boron-bearing regenerant to dispose of. Plant size, how far the permeate is from the target, and whether the site can handle a regeneration waste usually decide it.
What is the boron limit I have to meet?
WHO holds a guideline of 2.4 mg/L, derived from a tolerable daily intake of 0.17 mg per kg of body weight. The EU sets 1.5 mg/L in Annex I Part B of Directive 2020/2184, with 2.4 mg/L allowed where desalinated water predominates in the supply. The US EPA sets no MCL; its 2008 health advisory gives 3.0 mg/L for a one-day and ten-day exposure in a child and 2.0 mg/L longer term. If the water will irrigate crops, the binding number is far lower, near 0.7 mg/L for sensitive species.
Will conventional treatment take any boron out?
No, and this is worth being blunt about, because it is the assumption that most often wastes a study. Coagulation, sedimentation, filtration, lime softening and activated carbon remove essentially no boron at the concentrations found in natural or desalinated water. A plant that needs to lower boron has three options: a membrane operated so that borate rather than boric acid is present, a selective resin, or dilution. Anything else in the flowsheet is there for another reason.
A single-pass SWRO plant was producing permeate at 1.1 to 1.4 mg/L boron. The supply had ceased to be predominantly desalinated after a new surface source came online, so the applicable parametric value dropped from 2.4 to 1.5 mg/L and the plant was operating with almost no margin.
Rather than build a full second pass, the operator installed a boron-selective ion exchange polisher on a slipstream sized to treat about 40 percent of the permeate, blended back downstream. Regeneration used acid and caustic on an existing skid, and the spent regenerant was routed to the plant's existing brine outfall after neutralisation and dilution checks against the discharge consent.
Blended boron settled between 0.7 and 0.9 mg/L, restoring a margin of about 40 percent against the 1.5 mg/L value without touching the high-pressure trains or the energy recovery. Capital was a fraction of a second pass, and the plant kept its existing permeate pH regime, which had been the operator's main concern about the high-pH route.
Questions to Ask Shortlisted Providers
4 questions
- 1
What boron concentration does your design guarantee in the product water, at what feed temperature and at what membrane age?
Boron rejection falls as feed temperature rises and as membranes age, so a guarantee quoted at 25 degrees on new elements can be met on the test bench and missed in August in year four.
- 2
If you are proposing a high-pH second pass, what is the scaling control strategy and the re-acidification step?
Operating permeate above pH 9.5 is what makes the second pass work and is also what puts calcium and silica scale on those membranes; a design that names the pH but not the scaling plan is incomplete.
- 3
Where does the boron-bearing regenerant or the second-pass reject go, and does our discharge consent cover it?
Boron is not removed from the waste stream by anything downstream, so it leaves the site in the reject or the regenerant, and the consent for that stream is a permit question rather than a process one.
- 4
Will any of this water be used for irrigation, now or under the reuse plan?
The irrigation threshold for sensitive crops is near 0.7 mg/L, less than half the drinking water value, so a reuse commitment made after the plant is designed can invalidate the whole boron strategy.
Key Regulations & Standards
4 standards
Guideline value 2.4 mg/L, from a tolerable daily intake of 0.17 mg per kg body weight.
Parametric value 1.5 mg/L, Annex I Part B. A value of 2.4 mg/L applies where desalinated water is the predominant supply.
No MCL. The 2008 health advisory gives 3.0 mg/L one-day and ten-day for a child, and 2.0 mg/L longer term.
Sensitive crops show injury near 0.7 mg/L, well below every drinking water value; a reuse scheme feeding agriculture carries the tighter target.
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