Hitachi Ltd and Hitachi Plant Technologies Ltd, have signed an agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's King Abdulaziz University (KAU) for joint research that will focus on water quality monitoring technology developed at Hitachi's Yokohama Research Laboratory (Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan) and that will be used in Hitachi Plant Technologies' seawater desalination plant.

Seawater reverse osmosis plants are widely used to obtain potable water and industrial water in regions such as the Middle East, which have a serious shortage of water resource. An accurate assessment of seawater properties based on its monitoring is essential for controlling fouling and ensuring stable operation of the plants.

Water quality monitoring technology developed by the company measures the very small amount of substances in seawater that cause RO membrane fouling using the quartz crystal microbalance method (QCM method). This measures the mass of minute quantities of substances adhering to a quartz oscillator by detecting changes in the oscillator's natural frequency induced by the mass increase. This approach has already been developed for film thickness sensors used in semiconductor production equipment and other applications.

Using actual seawater from the Red Sea, the joint research with KAU's CEDT will demonstrate the performance of this system and accelerate its commercialisation. The Hitachi Group plans to use the results of the joint research to expand business in engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of seawater desalinisation plants and their operation and management business.