CN106999790B - Data collection system and method for water/fluid - Google Patents

Abstract

A control system and method for controlling a fluid treatment system, particularly a water treatment system, having a plurality of multi-module treatment sites utilizing low latency local control and higher latency global operational control. The multi-module process site includes one or more multi-Pulse Effect distillations (Pulse Effect Distillation)^TMPED), one or more pre-treatment units and one or more sludge concentration and storage units. The control systems and methods detect sensor signals corresponding to selected PED parameters of the same PED module and take action based on the measured and estimated PED parameters. The action taken may include one or more of: opening or closing flow control valves for input water, produced water and brine; starting compressor RPM and torque control; turning on/off the heater to activate/stabilize the heater; processing and selectively forwarding the processed signals and actions; and receiving control signals from an on-site control panel to readjust the reference/set-point parameters of the embedded PED controller, or to perform actions such as PED backwash and PED shutdown, restart, and cassette replacement.

Description

Data collection system and method for water/fluid

Cross Reference to Related Applications

This application claims priority as a partial continuation thereof in aesthetic national patent application 13/733,842 "method and apparatus for water purification" filed on 3.1.2013, and U.S. provisional patent application 62/044,192 "data collection system and method for water/fluid" filed on 30.8.2014, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Technical Field

PED (pulse Effect Distillation) according to U.S. patent application publication US2013/0175155^TM) Is a thermal distillation technique based on a counter-current two-phase to two-phase heat exchange process, in which an evaporation chamber and a condensation chamber are located on opposite sides of a common heat exchange wall.

The local operation control comprises a field control panel, a data communication device and a microprocessor based embedded controller for each PED module. The embedded controller detects sensor signals corresponding to selected PED parameters of the same PED module and takes action based on the measured and estimated PED parameters. The actions taken may include, for example: opening or closing flow control valves for input water, produced water and brine; starting compressor RPM and torque control; turning on/off the heater to activate/stabilize the heater; processing and selectively forwarding the processed signals and actions taken on the field control panel; and receiving control signals from the field control panel to readjust the reference/set point parameters of the embedded PED controller or to perform actions such as PED backwash and PED shutdown, restart, and cassette replacement. The field control panel receives periodic updates from the individual PED modules regarding inputs, brine and product flow rates, etc., and compares them to field averages and historical data to determine the health and production efficiency of each individual PED module, while the field operator inputs and takes action accordingly. The field control panel also selectively forwards processed field data to the global operations control center and receives specific instructions therefrom. The global operation control center processes individual field data and presents the processed data in a graphical user interface to allow transparent and comprehensive monitoring and control of all field water treatment processes to achieve automatic and manual auxiliary operation control of the water treatment system to achieve the purposes of optimizing operation and energy efficiency, optimizing resource management and reducing maintenance requirements.

The present invention relates to the control and management of water treatment systems, and more particularly to an advanced operational control system and method for optimally managing multi-site water treatment and purification using a plurality of modular PED units for each site.

Background

Water treatment is a large-scale process that converts highly contaminated source water, typically having high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and/or heavy metal concentrations, into product water that is acceptable for industrial, agricultural, and domestic use. To produce water suitable for drinking or medical use, the water needs to be purified to reduce or remove excessive undesirable chemical, biological and radioactive contaminants, suspended solids, and malodorous dissolved Volatile Organic Chemicals (VOCs) to the extent that: the final product water is suitable for human consumption and other applications requiring very high purity water.

According to U.S. patent application publication US2013/0175155, PED (Pulse Effect Distilction)^TM) Is a thermal distillation technique based on a counter-current two-phase to two-phase heat exchange process, wherein an evaporation chamber and a condensation chamber are located on opposite sides of a common heat exchange wall. The main energy input for PED processing is mechanical gas compression. While this heat exchange maintains the temperature gradient (which is an inherent property of a counter-current heat exchanger), the particular PED distillation process mimics an ideal thermodynamic reversible process and does approach this ideal limit when the transverse wall and thermal conductivity resistances are zero and infinite, respectively. As such, the energy efficiency of PED-based water purification processes as a whole depends on how closely the PED processes can mimic an ideal thermodynamically reversible process, which in turn depends on minimizing the increase in the specific ratio of entropy flow between the input fluid (which in one embodiment may be source water) and the output fluid (product water and brine). The causes of this increase in entropy rate are mainly direct heat input (which introduces entropy flow; it should be noted that mechanical energy input does not cause an increase in entropy flow) and internal entropy production. Internal entropy production comes primarily from the transverse walls and parallel heat transfer, as well as from viscous and turbulent drag on the fluid flow of water and gases (air and water vapor). For improperly insulated PED housings, the inevitable dissipation of heat to the external environment also introduces additional entropy production with a consequent loss of energy efficiency.

Although PED is primarily designed to produce distilled water free of almost all contaminants except VOCs, PED can be modified to produce low purity product water by replacing the solid common heat exchange wall substrate with a gas permeable hydrophobic microporous polymer membrane that allows for direct exchange of air-vapor mixtures through the pressure differential resulting from diffusion from the high pressure condensation chamber to the low pressure evaporation chamber. Direct gas exchange introduces additional heat flux that easily exceeds indirect heat exchange flux through heat conduction and localized heat convection, greatly increasing water production efficiency and energy efficiency as it reduces the heat exchange that induces the entropy production rate. Despite being similar to membrane distillation techniques, which also employ hydrophobic gas permeable polymeric membranes, the improved PED process differs overall in that it is still based on a well-defined thermodynamically reversible process with mechanical gas compression, and is therefore inherently more energy efficient. These enhancements come at the expense of a low, precise quality of the product water, which also allows dissolved solids and other micro-contaminants to diffuse through the heat exchange wall due to the pressure induced by gas diffusion, unlike conventional membrane distillation, where the gas pressure is typically slightly higher on the evaporator side than on the condenser side, and the gas flow is actually traveling precisely in the opposite direction to that described herein for the modified PED process.

By alternating the compression and expansion cycles (pulse effect; it should be noted that the compressor actually compresses and expands), the air (gas) in the evaporation chamber becomes alternately saturated and undersaturated. During the undersaturation phase, when the input fluid exceeds the solubility limit for these compounds, a portion of the dissolved solids, especially with calcium and heavy metal compounds, precipitates onto the membrane surface. Once solids precipitate on the surface of the porous membrane, these solids will be difficult to dissolve and return to the input fluid due to the greater concentration of dissolved solids in the vicinity of the deposited solids. While this precipitation further enhances distillation efficiency, it also allows for rapid accumulation of precipitated sediment, which must be periodically back flushed to remove such sediment. The backwash process requires closing the input water valve, diverting backwash water to the brine outlet, while concomitantly opening the brine valve to allow backwash fluid to flow into the brine reservoir for further sludge treatment. The brine valve should also be periodically activated to ensure that the brine concentration in the evaporation chamber does not exceed a preset limit.

The compression/expansion alternating or "pulse effect" compression/expansion method would be particularly beneficial for source water, such as frac water, which contains high concentrations of heavy metal salts and calcium oxide or calcium bicarbonate, which are known to be less soluble and whose solubility has a negative temperature dependence. Thus, the pulse effect process will cause such dissolved compounds to readily precipitate to the evaporator side of the semi-permeable membrane, where the heavy metal solids can be collected separately from the conventional salt (sodium chloride) by back flushing of the evaporation chamber. In fact, it is possible to further separate them with the advantage of different solubilities, preferentially precipitating and collecting heavy metals with different solubilities by timing the backwash, mist generation and expansion cycles differently. The ability to condense heavy metals separately from conventional salts would allow pulsed effect treated water to remove nearly all heavy metal content. Moreover, since heavy metal compounds are far more toxic than most other salts, and the fracturing water also contains ultra-high radioactive elements (e.g., radium) and its radioactive byproducts (e.g., radon), the ability to remove them from the incoming water vapor at an early stage is a great advantage. Since the main purpose of treating the frac water is to remove heavy metal content as well as radioactive elements, unlike seawater (typically TDS of about 35,000ppm), a membrane with larger pore size will suffice, as the improved PED will still be able to remove most biological agents as well as fine silt/colloid.

To reduce energy and maintenance requirements for single PED-based water treatment modules, detailed wet/dry bulb temperature, pressure, flow and TDS concentration distributions for the PEDs should be reconstructed by arranging multiple related sensors throughout the PED module. The reconstructed allocation can be used to perform an entropy production analysis, the results of which can be utilized to determine specific actions that need to be taken in real time to advance the PED toward a more optimal thermodynamic process. PED predictive analysis can also be employed to determine if the PED module is in a fault state requiring restart, backwash, or offline by comparing a predicted PED state to field and historical state data. Some possible actions to be taken are: open and close input and product water valves, input diverter valves, brine diverter valves and brine outlet valves, compressor RPM, torque values, open/close starter/stabilizer heating coils, backwash water pump switching, etc. It is also possible to determine whether a leak has occurred by a tradeoff of average or total inflow and outflow rates and brine effluent flow rate. If a leak is suspected and the human operator is alerted, the PED is taken offline. The ratio of inflow rate to average brine flow rate is also critical to the energy and operating efficiency of the module because high ratios mean high brine concentrations at the evaporator side, which can adversely affect the energy efficiency of the process, and cause module build-up settling and TDS at acceleration, which can require more frequent back flushing and other maintenance transactions, which can shorten the service life of the module. However, flushing the condensed brine too frequently reduces the water recovery rate, which can dramatically increase the pretreatment requirements and the cost of sludge treatment and disposal. Data communication between the field control panel and the individual PED modules can be based on a secure wired or wireless connection. If wireless communication is selected, inter-link and end-to-end encrypted virtual tunnels will be employed in the encapsulation to ensure security of data transmission to prevent intrusion.

In a control strategy arrangement for managing a plurality of module sites with PED modules distributed over the entire site area, the control strategy arrangement may be slightly different from that of a control arrangement for a single PED module. The single PED control strategy is responsive only to local PED specific conditions and is activated by an MCU (microcontroller unit) based on data processed from signals from multi-channel sensors embedded within the PED module, the single PED control strategy does not take into account the rise and fall of the source water supply and product water demand during the day. Since the energy efficiency of the PED is critically dependent on the Log Mean Temperature Difference (LMTD) of the heat exchange walls, the total internal entropy production rate for cross-wall heat exchange is proportional to the square of the LMTD, and since the water production rate is almost directly proportional to the same LMTD, it is desirable to distribute the inflow of source water as evenly as possible in all on-site PED modules in order to keep the on-site LMTD as low as possible. However, due to the uneven performance characteristics of PED modules, the historical performance index for each PED module should also be considered in the field optimization process.

This means that lower LMTD budgets should be allocated to PED modules in poor performance situations, rather than to modules in good performance situations, PED modules already at a steady high LMTD load should either reduce the LMTD load or be taken off-line altogether to provide a rest period for the overused PED modules during off-peak times. More frequent backwashing of these high load modules should be undertaken to ensure that significant sediment buildup does not occur to avoid scaling and other fouling conditions, which reduces the useful life of such modules. Finally, it is also important that the inflow and outflow rates of the individual modules be relatively constant, rather than having extremely high irregular flow rates, to achieve high energy and operating efficiency. Because the total input to the field PED module and the product water storage capacity can be quite large, the field PED module can also be used as a temporary storage buffer by adjusting the inflow and outflow rates ahead of time and anticipating an increase in upcoming water demand. Pretreated water is stored in each module to partially offset future increases in water demand.

For industrial scale water treatment systems comprising multiple treatment sites distributed over a large service area, control strategies regarding single PED or aggregated PED modules at a single site are no longer appropriate. Although, as long as the piping and pumping station network is sufficient to properly distribute source water, product water, and brine in nearby nodes (sites), localized distribution of LMTD loads between adjacent water treatment sites is still possible. Without any wide area redistribution of source and/or product water, the global control strategy must involve a cost matrix that includes local source supply, water demand and water redistribution costs, overall responsiveness and maintenance requirements, and expected service life and replacement costs for individual equipment. Mathematical optimization algorithms can be employed to determine a set of actions to be applied to each treatment site to optimize the overall system and operational efficiency, such as linear programming, dynamic programming, or newtonian nonlinear optimization techniques. Data communication between various sites and the operations control center can be accessed through a private cloud or a public network-based cloud using wired or wireless data. Or, this could even be a hybrid cloud based system, with secure data only transmitted within an encrypted private cloud, with limited access only through a Virtual Private Network (VPN), and non-secure information accessible through low-security two-factor login authentication.

Existing water treatment systems typically operate at sub-optimal conditions, resulting in increased energy usage and high maintenance costs and manpower requirements. In addition, water treatment control strategies often cannot keep up with varying water supplies and demands from site to site at peak and off-peak times.

Us patent 8594851B1 to Thomas f.smalris (usa) 11/2013 provides a prior art focus on control strategies for a single wastewater treatment site with multiple pumping stations along many pressure mains. Smaidris teaches that each wet well is equipped with a number of well sensors, the well water level sensor being the most prominent one, and a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) employing ladder logic processes the sensor signals. The resulting data is forwarded to the telemetry control unit, which then forwards the telemetry data to the radio unit for broadcast to the central control site. Each well is served by a pump station comprising a plurality of water pumps which supply water from the well to the pressure mains. A number of pressure mains are aggregated and fed to a wastewater treatment plant, wherein in each pressure mains the connected pump stations are preferably ordered on the basis of the storage capacity of the wetwell and the volume of incoming water, and this information is passed on to a central control location, which in turn authorizes the pumps to be activated at the pump stations on the basis of this order of priority. The central control site also performs flow rate management by identifying peaks and slack periods for a given pressure main, sequencing the pump stations on the pressure main with distance from the processing unit, and commanding pumping of the wetwells in order from farthest to nearest. Smaidris also describes in some detail how multiple pumping stations can communicate with a central server in a water management system with an XGMI cognitive radio and a DFS super SCADA server. It is immediately clear, however, that the particular radio technology used is largely unimportant, as it can be suitably replaced by other, more sophisticated radio technologies, such as Zigbee or WiFI in short range, and cellular radios in long range, without affecting their functionality. Also, with respect to the control strategy, the proposed priority-based pump management for single pressure mains is fully heuristic, not distributing the pumping load in a mathematically optimal manner. The proposed distance-based flow rate management is also heuristic in nature, not optimally distributing wetwell loads in a mathematically reliable manner. Furthermore, it treats each pressure main in a manner completely independent of the other pressure main, and this strategy cannot be optimized due to the interrelated nature of the pressure main feeding the same water treatment plant.

Us patent U8,321,039B2 to Graves (usa) 11/27/2012 describes an apparatus for managing a residential wastewater treatment system which includes a local control unit which monitors individual systems to provide local control and alarm functions, and communicates status reports and alarms to a remote monitoring center via network telemetry. The remote monitoring center further generates information about the individual systems available through the web site. Graves teaches without loss a dedicated microprocessor-based control input and alarm circuit whose sole purpose is to read analog inputs from the clock knob to set and control the ventilator motor according to the time set by the knob. While this disclosure is important with respect to Graves' intent to provide an inexpensive, reliable user interface panel of a control center to be installed in or near a home or other building for monitoring a home septic tank system, this design does not provide any automatic optimal control and management functions. Even if a central network based server is used, its primary purpose is to provide service reports and alerts to the subscribers they service, as well as to manage user access, invoice statements, user accounts, or initiation or termination of contracts.

None of the prior art can be considered as an integrated optimal control system and method for managing industrial scale water treatment and/or purification systems. The teachings of Smaidris are essentially limited to the specific example of a pumping network for supplying wet well source water to a wastewater treatment plant, and the proposed control strategy for well pumps is ad hoc and heuristic in nature and is not considered to be any mathematical optimization. The teachings of Graves are even more limiting and do not mention automatic control strategies. The main commonality between their teachings and the present invention is the potential use of radio data communication and network propagation to process information. None of these schemes is central to the teachings of the present invention.

The system/process for collecting and aggregating data described in this patent application/document can also be used to aggregate the same or similar data from any other liquid/fluid purification or filtration system, rather than just from the PED system.

Disclosure of Invention

The purpose of this section is to present some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more preferred embodiments. Simplified or omitted to avoid obscuring the purposes of the present section. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for controlling an industrial scale water treatment system that overcomes the above-mentioned limitations of prior art water management systems.

It is another object of the invention to provide a method for mathematically optimizing the automatic control of individual PED modules.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a method for mathematically optimizing the automated control of a single water treatment site comprising a plurality of PED modules.

It is a further object of this invention to provide a method of mathematically optimizing global control of an industrial scale water management system including a plurality of water treatment sites.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a system in which status and control data can be transmitted through various data communication means.

These foregoing objects are achieved in a particularly preferred embodiment according to the present invention by providing a water treatment system having a plurality of multi-module treatment sites utilizing low latency local control and higher latency global operational control. The multi-module process site includes a number of PED modules, one or more pre-treatment units, and one or more sludge concentration and storage units. The local operation control comprises a field control panel, a data communication device and a microprocessor based embedded controller for each PED module. The embedded controller detects sensor signals corresponding to selected PED parameters of the same PED module and takes action based on the measured and estimated PED parameters. The actions taken may include, for example: opening or closing flow control valves for input water, produced water and brine; starting compressor RPM and torque control; turning on/off the heater to activate/stabilize the heater; processing and selectively forwarding the processed signals and actions taken on the field control panel; and receiving control signals from the field control panel to readjust the reference/set point parameters of the embedded PED controller or to perform actions such as PED backwash and PED shutdown, restart, and cassette replacement.

The field control panel receives periodic updates from the individual PED modules regarding inputs, brine and product flow rates, etc., and compares them to field averages and historical data to determine the health and production efficiency of each individual PED module, while field operators input and take action accordingly. The field control panel also selectively forwards processed field data to the global operations control center and receives specific instructions therefrom. The global operation control center processes individual field data and presents the processed data in a graphical user interface to allow transparent and comprehensive monitoring and control of all field water treatment processes to achieve automatic and manual auxiliary operation control of the water treatment system to achieve the purposes of optimizing operation and energy efficiency, optimizing resource management and reducing maintenance requirements.

The system/process for collecting and aggregating data described in this patent application/document can also be used to aggregate the same or similar data from any other liquid/fluid purification or filtration system, rather than just from a PED system.

In one aspect, the present invention pertains to a fluid treatment system comprising: a plurality of fluid treatment modules for fluid treatment within a field, wherein each of said treatment modules comprises at least one of the list: sensors and/or transducers, electronic control means and/or data communication means; wherein each said processing module is capable of receiving sensor signals from each said sensor to cause the electronic control means of said processing module to develop and/or execute a model predictive decision process to determine the action to be taken by one or more of each said transducers in order to maximise the efficiency of operation within each said processing module, and when required to be used, said data communication means communicates processed module status data to one or more field control panels; one or more field control panels that supervise one or more process modules within a field, wherein each of the field control panels communicates with one or more of the fluid process modules to communicate status information to/from the one or more process modules, collect, process, analyze, and/or update information for the one or more field control panels, communicate bi-directionally (to/from) with one or more operations control centers, and update reference parameters for individual process modules via the communication devices; one or more operations control centers in communication with the one or more field control panels for communicating field-specific reference parameters and/or status updates to/from the one or more field control panels, wherein the one or more operations control centers utilize a field control strategy arrangement to analyze, generate and periodically update individual process module-specific parameters based on field parameters common to a plurality of process modules such that individual parameters for control of one or more of the process modules are assigned to each of the process modules by one or more of the control panels based on a desired optimal individual module response.

In another aspect, the field control strategy device includes field/individual module data/status attributes that include at least one of: a field fluid demand, a field safety parameter, a field source fluid status, a field log mean temperature difference, a module flow rate, a module status, a module planned maintenance, and/or a module deviation from a normal parameter; and the data communication means can comprise at least one of: wired or wireless links, encrypted radio links, secure private network connections, Wi-Fi (including but not limited to ieee802.11n, 802.11ac, and similar variants), ZigBee, bluetooth, cellular radio (including but not limited to 3G, 4G, LTE, and similar variants). In yet another aspect, selected process information from one or more of the process modules at one or more sites is presented to an operator via a user interface so that it can be adjusted by human-assisted action. In another aspect, the process information presented to the operator includes at least one of: general account information, field wide operating status, maintenance records, alarm history, service contract status, financial asset liability statement and/or compliance records.

In one aspect, the fluid control module is a pulse effect distillation module, namely a PED module. In another aspect, the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a dedicated security cloud. In yet another aspect, the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a virtual private network tunnel connected to a cloud-based network.

In one aspect, the present invention is directed to a method of fluid treatment, implementing some of the above aspects, specifically including: providing a plurality of fluid treatment modules for treating a fluid within a field, wherein each of said treatment modules comprises at least one of the list of: sensors and/or transducers, electronic control means and/or data communication means; wherein each said processing module is capable of receiving sensor signals from each said sensor to cause the electronic control means of said processing module to develop and/or execute a model predictive decision process to determine the action to be taken by one or more of each said transducers in order to maximise the efficiency of operation within each said processing module, and when required for use, said data communication means communicates processed module status data to one or more field control panels; providing one or more field control panels that supervise one or more process modules within a field, wherein each of said field control panels communicates with one or more of said fluid process modules to communicate status information to/from one or more of said process modules, collect, process, analyze and/or update information for said one or more field control panels, communicate bi-directionally (to/from) with one or more operations control centers, and update reference parameters for individual process modules via said communication means; providing one or more operations control centers in communication with the one or more field control panels for communicating field-specific reference parameters and/or status updates to/from the one or more field control panels, wherein the one or more operations control centers utilize a field control strategy arrangement to analyze, generate and periodically update individual process module-specific parameters based on field parameters common to a plurality of process modules such that individual parameters for control of one or more of the process modules are assigned to each of the process modules by one or more of the control panels based on a desired optimal individual module response.

Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent upon review of the following detailed description of the embodiments of the invention in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

Drawings

These and other aspects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent in light of the following detailed description, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

fig. 1 is an exemplary schematic diagram illustrating typical sensors and actuators in a PED module according to an exemplary embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 2 is an exemplary schematic diagram illustrating how sensors and actuators in a plurality of PED modules may be interconnected to a central control panel within a water treatment site in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the invention. It should be noted that: PED refers to PED utilizing a spectrometer and/or a sensor, such as for temperature; pressure; humidity; TDS; the pH value; conductivity; TOC (total organic carbon); ORP (oxidation reduction potential); chlorine; chemical contaminants; …

FIG. 3 is an exemplary schematic block diagram illustrating the manner in which a plurality of water treatment sites communicate with an operations control center in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 4 is an exemplary flow chart of MCU-based automatic control of a PED module according to an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is an exemplary flow diagram of field management according to one aspect of the present invention, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is an exemplary flowchart of operation control management according to an aspect of the present invention, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is an exemplary diagram illustrating an exemplary multi-processing module communication device link in communication with a cloud database and a web application operations center in accordance with an illustrative embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary schematic diagram showing exemplary sensor and actuator arrangements in a processing module according to an illustrative embodiment of the invention.

The above described and other features will be appreciated by those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, drawings and appended claims.

Detailed Description

This section is for the purpose of summarizing some aspects of the invention and to briefly introduce some preferred embodiments. Can be simplified or omitted to avoid obscuring the purposes of this section. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention.

In order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention, certain illustrative embodiments and examples will now be described. It will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the same or equivalent functions and sequences may be accomplished by different embodiments that are also intended to be encompassed within the spirit and scope of the disclosure. The compositions, devices, systems and/or methods described herein are capable of adjustment and modification to suit the business being solved, and these described herein can be employed in other suitable applications, and such other additions and modifications will not depart from the scope thereof.

Can be simplified or omitted to avoid obscuring the purposes of this section. Such simplifications or omissions are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention. All references, including any patents or patent applications cited in this specification are hereby incorporated by reference. No admission is made that any reference constitutes prior art. The discussion of the references states what the authors of these documents assert, and the applicants are entitled to challenge the accuracy and pertinency of the cited documents. It will be clearly understood that, although a number of prior art publications are referred to herein, this reference does not constitute an admission that any of these documents forms part of the common general knowledge in the art.

As used in the specification and in the claims, the singular form of "a", "an", and "the" include plural references unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. For example, the term "a transaction" can include multiple transactions unless the content clearly dictates otherwise. As used in the specification and in the claims, reference to a singular name or type includes a grouping of variations of the name, unless the content clearly dictates otherwise.

Certain terminology is used in the following description for convenience only and is not limiting. The words "lower," "upper," "bottom," "top," "front," "back," "left," "right," and "side" refer to directions in the drawings to which reference is made, and do not limit the orientation in which the modules or any of their components can be used.

It is recognized that the term 'comprising' can have either an exclusive or an inclusive meaning in different jurisdictions. For the purposes of this specification, unless otherwise indicated, the term 'comprise' shall have an inclusive meaning-i.e. that it will be taken to mean an inclusion of not only the listed components it directly references, but also other non-specified components or elements. This rationale will also be used when the term 'comprising' or 'including' is used in one or more steps of a method or process.

Referring to fig. 1, a schematic diagram is shown illustrating a typical sensor and actuator arrangement in a PED module 1 according to an aspect of the invention. The PED module includes: a plurality of evaporation chambers 111, only one of which is shown; a plurality of condensing chambers 112, only one of which is shown; a high throughput compressor 12; a small throughput compressor 13; a Digitally Controlled Valve (DCV)142 that controls a product water outlet 147; a DCV148 controlling a source water inlet 143, the source water inlet 143 also doubling as a backwash effluent outlet (hence a double-headed arrow); a high pressure water backwash pump 145 and a backwash DCV 146. A set of DCV valves and compressor/pump, microbubble generator/nebulizer 17 and starter/stabilizer heating coil 160 are considered as a set of actuators, there are temperature sensors (denoted by T), pressure sensors (denoted by P), flow sensors (denoted by R for flow) and TDS sensors (denoted by TDS) that measure water/air temperature, pressure, total dissolved solids concentration (TDS) and flow rates into and out of the various inlets/outlets and brine outlet.

The PED module has a closed inner air ring actuated by two compressors 12 and 13, the compressors 12 and 13 together forming a compressor-expander (compressor-expander) arrangement. Since the volume of gas that can be pushed by the compressor 12 is large and the volume of gas that can be delivered by the compressor 13 is relatively small, the gas pressure in the condenser 111 will be less than the gas pressure in the evaporator 112. The incoming source water through the source water inlet 143 mixes with the compressed air from the microbubble generator/nebulizer 17, generating a fine mist of water droplets 157 that are directed at the common heat exchange wall 14. The water droplets are heated by the heat exchanger through the wall 14 to generate saturated steam 156, and the saturated steam 156 is drawn into the inlet of the compressor 12, then compressed and sent forward to the proximal (relative to the compressor 12) end of the condenser 112. When the compressed air is now supersaturated, condensation occurs until excess steam is removed. As the saturated air travels further downstream, condensation continues to occur as the air is conditioned to lower and lower saturation pressures until the air is almost completely depleted of humidity 158. The relatively dry air 158 is recompressed by the compressor 13 to power the microbubble generator. The lower pressure in the vaporization chamber 111 also helps to cause the incoming mist to flash into vapor. A portion of the water 18 in the evaporation chamber 111 that is not evaporated at the end of the evaporation path is re-flowed through the narrow counter-flow heat exchange channel 113 to the distal end, thereby preheating the source water. The saltwater DCV141 is turned on when the measured TDS from the TDS sensor before the saltwater DCV141 exceeds a threshold value and turned off when the measured TDS level falls below a lower threshold value.

The set point of the TDS threshold for the saltwater DCV141 is determined by an electronic control device, which in one embodiment can include a Microcontroller (MCU)2, the Microcontroller (MCU)2 also receiving signals from all temperature, pressure and TDS sensors and determining what action to take and sending control signals to the corresponding actuators via controller output 3. The inflow and outflow flow rates from the flow meter are twice integrated to determine if a partial or total blockage has occurred, or when there is a strong likelihood of a leak, or if the current TDS measurement exceeds the moving average TDS value by a large threshold value. When some or all of these conditions occur, there is a strong indication: the PED module should receive an accelerated maintenance schedule, such as shortening the interval between backwashes, or the PED cassette needs to be replaced, or the entire PED unit should be taken offline and replaced.

The MCU is also responsible for estimating the counter flow heat exchange LMTD using the collected sensor data and historical data for past sensor data and actions taken to calculate the expected entropy production rate. This can be used to perform local optimization of the PED module, constrained by the field control panel settings.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram showing how the sensors and actuators in a plurality of PED modules are interconnected to a central control panel within the water treatment site 4. The sensor and actuator signals are processed by the embedded microcontroller 2 of each PED module and selectively sent to the central control panel 43 via a common data communication means. Such data communication means can be a control (and power) bus 42 or, alternatively, a radio data communication network, communicating with the MCU2 using a radio unit 43 on each PED module.

The radio unit can employ any wireless data communication means, such as Zigbee, bluetooth, ieee802.11n/ac, or cellular radio (2G, 3G, 4G), if the coverage area exceeds the range that can be provided by the aforementioned short-range wireless technology. It is important that the data communication network employed is secure and dedicated to prevent hackers, as any hijacked network will have foreseeable dire consequences as it will be used to take over the control of the water treatment apparatus.

While each MCU attached to the PED module is able to perform model predictive calculations based on the processed sensor input data to estimate net entropy production and use the resulting model to determine optimal actions to take to improve energy and operational efficiency, such local control strategies are not necessarily optimal for the water treatment site in question. By communicating individual PED status or telemetry data to the control panel, the control panel is allowed to provide additional optimization tasks such as load balancing to improve on-site energy efficiency and operating/maintenance costs, and buffering of pre-treated water to mitigate peak hour demand. The central control panel is also capable of providing field statistics to individual PED modules to assist the PEDs in modifying the predictive model accordingly to improve their accuracy of prediction.

FIG. 3 is a schematic block diagram illustrating the manner in which a plurality of water treatment sites 4 communicate with an operations control center 53. The information collected by each PED control panel is analyzed and selectively forwarded to an operations control centre 53 via a dedicated data communication network 51, or they can also be communicated to the control panel of each module via a radio link and connected radio unit 52.

The main task of the operation control center is to perform large-scale load balancing considering the water supply and demand at each site and its corresponding water treatment capacity. Its ancillary task is to provide a human-friendly user interface, preferably a graphical user interface, to allow monitoring of a wide area of all water treatment sites. Third, the operations control center distributes the processed field data to a database that can be accessed by any authorized user via a secure channel. Information accessible to the user includes general account information, field wide operating status, maintenance records, alarm history, service contract status, financial asset liability statement, and compliance records.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of the automatic control of the PED module based on the MCU. In the preferred method, the MCU of the PED module downloads the reference parameters from the field control panel at 600, receives sensor data from the sensor array at 605, and computes a running average of the sensor data at 607. At 610, using the moving average data and the estimated entropic production rate data, a model-based calculation is performed to estimate the likelihood of leakage/obstruction. If the likelihood of leakage exceeds a confidence threshold based on the received reference parameters at 615, then the PED module in question is taken offline and an alert is sent to the field control panel at 617. On the other hand, if the likelihood of blockage exceeds the confidence threshold based on the received reference parameters at 620, the PED module in question is labeled at 627 for an immediate backwash operation to clear the PED cassette or, in the event that the cassette is deemed unavailable, the cassette is labeled for replacement in the next maintenance cycle. Otherwise, at 625, LMTD data for all heat exchange surfaces is calculated and net entropy production rates are estimated accordingly. At 630, the calculated data is provided to a hill climbing algorithm (a simple gradient descent algorithm) or a newton or quasi-newton quadratic search algorithm or their equivalent to determine the optimal control action to take.

If the action determined by the algorithm at 635 is to introduce direct heating to stabilize PED operation, then at 637, the electric heater is turned on to increase the maximum temperature within the evaporation chamber. If there is inadequate compression, excessive compression, or the gas flow rate is not within the normal range at 640, then the compressor RPM speed or torque value is adjusted at 647. If the accumulated brine concentration and the brine temperature estimated based on the measured TDS value are above the corresponding reference parameters at 645, then the brine valve is opened to drain the accumulated brine at 657 until the TDS value falls within the normal range. If the estimated blockage at 650 exceeds the reference rate, then the inflow rate is decreased 667 and the brine concentration is decreased by increasing the frequency with which the brine is emptied. Finally, if the demand for product water is reduced at 655, then the inflow speed and compressor settings are adjusted accordingly to meet the demand and load balancing actions at 677.

Fig. 5 is a flow diagram of field management according to an aspect of the present invention. In the method, the field control panel collects processed data from the individual PED modules at 730 and receives reference parameters for the field PED modules from the operations control center at 735. This information is employed to perform load balancing calculations based on the supply/demand request 700 from the operations control center and the processed PED data at 740. The reference parameters are sent to the PED modules at 745 and the selected data (including status information, general statistics and alarms for each PED module) is sent to the operations control center at 755.

6-8 illustrate a flow diagram of operational control management according to an aspect of the present invention, at 845, forward field specific reference parameters to the affiliated field. Wherein, at 830, the operations control center collects processed data from the affiliated water treatment site. At 840, a load balancing calculation is calculated taking into account the available site specific data, along with operator feedback and commands 800. The generated reference parameters are sent to the affiliated site at 845, and the selected status, statistics, alerts, and compliance information are displayed at 855 on a user interface, preferably a graphical user interface, to allow a central operator to monitor the activity and status of the affiliated site and make changes by rewriting computer generated parameters or automatically generated requests 800.

Those of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that the parameters and configurations described herein are exemplary only, and that the actual parameters or configuration will depend on the specific application for which the system and method is used. It is also to be understood that the embodiments described herein are presented by way of example only, and that the invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

The system/process for collecting and aggregating data described in this patent application/document can also be used to aggregate the same or similar data from any other liquid/fluid purification or filtration system, not just a PED system.

Conclusion

In concluding the detailed description, it should be noted that it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that many changes and modifications can be made to the preferred embodiments without departing from the principles of the invention. Further, such variations and modifications are intended to be included herein within the scope of the present invention as set forth in the appended claims. Furthermore, in the claims below, the structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of all means or step plus function elements are intended to include any structure, material, or act for performing their stated function.

It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments of the present invention, particularly, any "preferred embodiments," are merely possible examples of implementations, merely set forth for a clear understanding of the principles of the invention. Any variations and modifications can be made to the above-described embodiments of the invention without departing from the principles of the invention. All such modifications and variations are intended to be included herein within the scope of this disclosure and the present invention and protected by the following claims.

The invention has been described in sufficient detail to enable a certain degree of particularity. Those skilled in the art recognize its utility. It is understood by those skilled in the art that the present disclosure of the embodiments has been made by way of example only, and that numerous changes in the arrangement and combination of parts may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as claimed. Accordingly, the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims rather than by the foregoing description of the embodiments.

Claims (16)

1. A fluid treatment system comprising:

a plurality of fluid treatment modules for fluid treatment within a field, wherein each of said treatment modules comprises at least one of the list: sensors and/or transducers, electronic control means and/or data communication means;

wherein each said processing module is capable of receiving sensor signals from each said sensor to cause the electronic control means of said processing module to develop and/or execute a model predictive decision process to determine the action to be taken by one or more of each said transducers in order to maximise the efficiency of operation within each said processing module, and when required to be used, said data communication means communicates processed module status data to one or more field control panels;

one or more field control panels that supervise one or more process modules within a field, wherein each of said field control panels communicates with one or more of said fluid process modules to communicate status information to/from one or more of said process modules, collect, process, analyze and/or update information for said one or more field control panels, bi-directionally communicate with one or more operations control centers, and update reference parameters for individual process modules via said communication means;

one or more operations control centers in communication with the one or more field control panels for communicating field-specific reference parameters and/or status updates to/from the one or more field control panels, wherein the one or more operations control centers utilize a field control strategy arrangement to analyze, generate and periodically update individual process module-specific parameters based on field parameters common to a plurality of process modules such that individual parameters for control of one or more of the process modules are assigned to each of the process modules by one or more of the field control panels based on a desired optimal individual module response,

wherein the field control panel collects processed data from each of the fluid process modules; receiving site-specific reference parameters for the fluid treatment module from the operations control center; performing a load balancing calculation based on a supply/demand request from the operations control center and processed data of the fluid treatment module, the fluid treatment module being a pulse effect distillation module, PED module; then sending the reference parameter to the fluid treatment module; and sending status information, statistics and alarms for each fluid treatment module to the operations control center;

wherein the operations control center collects processed data from an in-situ control panel, calculates an in-situ specific reference parameter for the fluid process module based on the data; performing load balancing calculations based on demand requests from operator feedback and commands and site specific data; the generated site-specific reference parameters are sent to a site control panel.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the field control strategy device includes field/individual module data/status attributes including at least one of:

a field fluid demand, a field safety parameter, a field source fluid status, a field log mean temperature difference, a module flow rate, a module status, a module planned maintenance, and/or a module deviation from a normal parameter; and

the data communication device can include at least one of:

wired or wireless links, encrypted radio links, secure private network connections, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, cellular radio; the Wi-Fi comprises IEEE802.11n or 802.11ac, and the cellular radio comprises 3G, 4G, or LTE.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein:

selected process information from one or more of the process modules at one or more sites is presented to an operator via a user interface so that it can be adjusted by human-assisted actions.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein:

the process information presented to the operator includes at least one of:

general account information, field wide operating status, maintenance records, alarm history, service contract status, financial asset liability statement and/or compliance records.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a dedicated security cloud.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a virtual private network tunnel connected to a cloud-based network.

7. The system of claim 2, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a dedicated security cloud.

8. The system of claim 2, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a virtual private network tunnel connected to a cloud-based network.

9. A method of fluid treatment comprising:

providing a plurality of fluid treatment modules for treating a fluid within a field, wherein each of said treatment modules comprises at least one of the list of: sensors and/or transducers, electronic control means and/or data communication means;

wherein each said processing module is capable of receiving sensor signals from each said sensor to cause the electronic control means of said processing module to develop and/or execute a model predictive decision process to determine the action to be taken by one or more of each said transducers in order to maximise the efficiency of operation within each said processing module, and when required for use, said data communication means communicates processed module status data to one or more field control panels;

providing one or more field control panels that supervise one or more process modules within a field, wherein each of said field control panels communicates with one or more of said fluid process modules to communicate status information to/from one or more of said process modules, collect, process, analyze and/or update information for said one or more field control panels, bi-directionally communicate with one or more operations control centers, and update reference parameters for individual process modules via said communication means;

providing one or more operations control centers in communication with the one or more field control panels for communicating field-specific reference parameters and/or status updates to/from the one or more field control panels, wherein the one or more operations control centers utilize a field control strategy arrangement to analyze, generate and periodically update individual process module-specific parameters based on field parameters common to a plurality of process modules such that individual parameters for control of one or more of the process modules are assigned to each of the process modules by one or more of the control panels based on a desired optimal individual module response,

wherein the field control panel collects processed data from each of the fluid process modules; receiving site-specific reference parameters for the fluid treatment module from the operations control center; performing a load balancing calculation based on a supply/demand request from the operations control center and processed data of the fluid treatment module, the fluid treatment module being a pulse effect distillation module, PED module; then sending the reference parameter to the fluid treatment module; and sending status information, statistics and alarms for each fluid treatment module to the operations control center;

wherein the operations control center collects processed data from an in-situ control panel, calculates an in-situ specific reference parameter for the fluid process module based on the data; performing load balancing calculations based on demand requests from operator feedback and commands and site specific data; the generated site-specific reference parameters are sent to a site control panel.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the field control strategy device includes field/individual module data/status attributes including at least one of:

a field fluid demand, a field safety parameter, a field source fluid status, a field log mean temperature difference, a module flow rate, a module status, a module planned maintenance, and/or a module deviation from a normal parameter; and

the data communication device can include at least one of:

wired or wireless links, encrypted radio links, secure private network connections, Wi-Fi, ZigBee, Bluetooth, cellular radio; the Wi-Fi comprises IEEE802.11n or 802.11ac, and the cellular radio comprises 3G, 4G, or LTE.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein:

selected process information from one or more of the process modules at one or more sites is presented to an operator via a user interface so that it can be adjusted by human-assisted actions.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein:

the process information presented to the operator includes at least one of:

general account information, field wide operating status, maintenance records, alarm history, service contract status, financial asset liability statement and/or compliance records.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a dedicated security cloud.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a virtual private network tunnel connected to a cloud-based network.

15. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a dedicated security cloud.

16. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the one or more operations control centers and the one or more field control panels are located in a virtual private network tunnel connected to a cloud-based network.

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