necessitates cleaning and reduces the life expectancy of the membranes all municipal and industrial reverse osmosis systems utilize cleaning systems that force cleaning fluids through the membrane system to remove and flush the biofilm from the system the cleaning action requires that the train must be taken off line the cleaning fluids and flushed water must be disposed of in the waste stream over the life of the membrane the effectiveness of cleaning lessens and damage occurs to the membrane surface thereby reducing its useful life expectancy the processes and apparatus described herein can be but is not limited to use in the seawater desalination industry and would provide an additional approach to limit membrane bio fouling which affects commercial and industrial seawater reverse osmosis facility in the world it would increase operational efficiency increase membrane life by reducing cleaning cycles and save operating cost the device could be added in all new seawater reverse osmosis water treatment plants and could be retrofitted into existing plants the most common method of cleaning the membranes is to pump a special solution of water and chemicals through the membranes to clean the surface of the membranes experiments are being made using an ultrasound generator connected to the housing of the pressure vessel to assess the degree of biofouling and to help clean the membrane area but this process is rarely or not used at all in the desalination industry as a whole u s pat no 6 161 435 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety a vibrator cleaning method applied to hollow fiber membranes was described in u s patent publication 2007 0295674 which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety the cleaning of membranes by pressurized gas pulsation was described in.