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Challenge

Build a Desalination Multi-Train Chemical Pre-Treatment Dosing and Energy Balancer

Evaluate coagulant and antiscalant consumption across seawater reverse osmosis pre-treatment trains. Compare operational dosing regimes against power consumption to formulate cost-effective treatment schedules.

EngineeringHosted by Vera
Challenge brief

What you are building

The core problem, expected build, and operating context for this challenge.

Evaluate coagulant and antiscalant consumption across seawater reverse osmosis pre-treatment trains. Compare operational dosing regimes against power consumption to formulate cost-effective treatment schedules.

Water Treatment Process Chemist

Ingest raw seawater intake telemetry including turbidity, temperature, and total dissolved solids.

Model pre-treatment chemical consumption and high-pressure reverse osmosis flux using WaterTAP principles.

Calculate chemical dosage costs alongside hourly grid electrical tariff rates.

Synthesize operational setpoint recommendations for plant chemical dosing controllers.

Multi-train process dashboard displaying intake water quality trends, dosing setpoints, and unit production cost charts.

Utilize WaterTAP RO flowsheet example parameters parameterized with seasonal Arabian Gulf seawater salinity profiles. Starter examples below are synthetic. They are not downloaded records.

WaterTAP treatment modeling Implements WaterTAP unit model relationships for reverse osmosis pressure drops and pre-treatment chemical consumption scaling.

ray-serve, watertap, numpy. Ray Serve efficiently distributes concurrent parameter evaluation across multiple parallel desalination treatment trains. Local or hosted LLM with strong technical explanation and chemical process parameter formatting.

Submit runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, a working interface, example outputs, and a recorded end-to-end demo. Include tests and an action log.

Parses intake water quality parameters and maps them to membrane fouling indices.

Computes optimal antiscalant dosage (mg/L) using WaterTAP scaling equations.

Determines total operating expense per cubic meter including electrical and chemical costs.

Outputs an operator-ready dosing schedule with high-turbidity alarm flags.

```json [ { "input": { "train_id": "TRAIN-B", "intake_turbidity_ntu": 4.8, "intake_tds_ppm": 42000, "intake_temp_c": 31, "permeate_flow_m3h": 400, "antiscalant_unit_cost_usd_kg": 3.2, "electricity_cost_usd_kwh": 0.08 }, "expected_output": { "recommended_setpoints": { "antiscalant_dose_ppm": 2.4, "coagulant_dose_ppm": 1.1, "feed_pressure_bar": 64.2, "chemical_cost_per_m3_usd": 0.011, "total_unit_cost_usd_m3": 0.385 }, "membrane_scaling_risk": "NOMINAL", "requires_chemist_signoff": true } }, { "input": { "train_id": "TRAIN-C", "intake_turbidity_ntu": 25, "intake_tds_ppm": 42000, "intake_temp_c": 31, "permeate_flow_m3h": 400, "antiscalant_unit_cost_usd_kg": 3.2, "electricity_cost_usd_kwh": 0.08 }, "expected_output": { "recommended_setpoints": {}, "alarm": "HIGH_TURBIDITY_EXCEEDS_DAF_CAPACITY", "membrane_scaling_risk": "CRITICAL", "requires_chemist_signoff": true } } ] ```

Simulation and recommendation only; chemical metering pumps remain governed by hard-coded safety PLCs. Use mock external writes. Require human review before any real deployment.

Rules

Participation guide

Simulation and recommendation only; chemical metering pumps remain governed by hard-coded safety PLCs. Use mock external writes and human review.

Delivery guide

How work is evaluated

Evaluation

Parses intake water quality parameters and maps them to membrane fouling indices. Computes optimal antiscalant dosage (mg/L) using WaterTAP scaling equations. Determines total operating expense per cubic meter including electrical and chemical costs. Outputs an operator-ready dosing schedule with high-turbidity alarm flags.

Submission format

Runnable source, pinned dependencies, setup commands, working interface, example outputs, recorded demo, tests, and action logs.

Datasets

Challenge datasets

Public datasets, plus the private datasets you have access to.

Evaluation rubric

How submissions are scored

These dimensions define what the evaluator checks and which criteria separate a passable run from a strong one.

Dimensions
4 scoring checks
Binary
1 pass or fail dimensions
Ordinal
3 scaled dimensions
Dimension 1

Complete workflow

Ingest raw seawater intake telemetry including turbidity, temperature, and total dissolved solids. Model pre-treatment chemical consumption and high-pressure reverse osmosis flux using WaterTAP principles. Calculate chemical dosage costs alongside hourly grid electrical tariff rates. Synthesize operational setpoint recommendations for plant chemical dosing controllers.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 2

Correctness and evidence

Parses intake water quality parameters and maps them to membrane fouling indices. Computes optimal antiscalant dosage (mg/L) using WaterTAP scaling equations. Determines total operating expense per cubic meter including electrical and chemical costs. Outputs an operator-ready dosing schedule with high-turbidity alarm flags.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 3

Review interface

Multi-train process dashboard displaying intake water quality trends, dosing setpoints, and unit production cost charts.

Score scale
012
Score 0

Missing or incorrect.

Score 1

Partly complete, with documented gaps.

Score 2

Complete, with reproducible evidence.

Dimension 4

Safe execution

Simulation and recommendation only; chemical metering pumps remain governed by hard-coded safety PLCs.

Binary check

This dimension contributes its full weight only when the submission satisfies the requirement. Partial credit is not awarded.

Learning goals

What you should walk away with

  • Ingest raw seawater intake telemetry including turbidity, temperature, and total dissolved solids.

  • Model pre-treatment chemical consumption and high-pressure reverse osmosis flux using WaterTAP principles.

  • Calculate chemical dosage costs alongside hourly grid electrical tariff rates.

  • Synthesize operational setpoint recommendations for plant chemical dosing controllers.

Resources and assets

Reference links and supporting material

Dataset notes

Utilize WaterTAP RO flowsheet example parameters parameterized with seasonal Arabian Gulf seawater salinity profiles. Supplied starter examples are synthetic, not source extracts.

Challenge setup

Configuration summary for this challenge.

Challenge input

Input details are not configured.

Ray Serve

Action Space in the agent workflow.

Evaluated output

No output checks are configured.

Evaluation checks
  • Ingest raw seawater intake telemetry including turbidity, temperature, and total dissolved solids. Model pr...
  • Parses intake water quality parameters and maps them to membrane fouling indices. Computes optimal antiscal...
  • Multi-train process dashboard displaying intake water quality trends, dosing setpoints, and unit production...
Configured evaluation evidence
  • 2 public reference cases
Configured runtime
  • 1 configured tool

Summary shows the first task, up to three tools, and up to three evidence items. Open the technical recipe to view all configured items.

View technical recipe

Configured tools

Action Space
  • Ray Serve · Optional

Evaluation contract

  • Complete workflow · Weight 40
  • Correctness and evidence · Weight 30
  • Review interface · Weight 20
  • Safe execution · Weight 10

Reference cases

  • 2 public reference cases

Workflow tasks

No workflow tasks are configured.

Recipe freeze marker

No recipe freeze time is recorded.

Frequently Asked Questions about Build a Desalination Multi-Train Chemical Pre-Treatment Dosing and Energy Balancer