Simulations of Full-Scale Reverse Osmosis Membrane Process (original) (raw)
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Experimental and Theoretical Study on Reverse Osmosis Based Water Desalination
Journal of Engineering Research
Freshwater availability has dropped due to population growth, inefficient use, climate change, and industrial pollution. Although the reverse osmosis, RO, system is one of the most effective desalination technologies worldwide, spiral wound membranes still need deeper theoretical and experimental investigations for removing salts under low energy consumption. In this study, the performance of a commercial pilot RO plant that utilizes a spiral wound seawater membrane module is experimentally investigated under a wide range of operating parameters. In addition, a Mathematical model is developed based on the solution-diffusion model theory and then solved using an in-house MATLAB algorithm to analyze its performance. The theoretical and experimental results were then compared. The present results revealed that the mathematical model's predictions were highly consistent with the actual experimental results, achieving an average accuracy of about 98%. The average deviation was 4.0578% when predicting water productivity and just 0.2755% when estimating the salt rejection coefficient. The findings of this study could assist designers in predicting the membrane's performance and selecting the most advantageous operational parameters for supplying water to the RO system.
Engineering, 2022
When designing and building an optimal reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant, it is important that engineers select effective membrane parameters for optimal application performance. The membrane selection can determine the success or failure of the entire desalination operation. The objective of this work is to review available membrane types and design parameters that can be selected for optimal application to yield the highest potential for plant operations. Factors such as osmotic pressure, water flux values, and membrane resistance will all be evaluated as functions of membrane parameters. The optimization of these parameters will be determined through the deployment of the solution-diffusion model devolved from the Maxwell Stephan Equation. When applying the solution-diffusion model to evaluate RO membranes, the Maxwell Stephan Equation provides mathematical analysis through which the steps for mass transfer through a RO membrane may be observed and calculated. A practical study of the use of the solution-diffusion model will be discussed. This study uses the diffusion-solution model to evaluate the effectiveness of a variety of Toray RO membranes. This practical application confirms two principal hypotheses when using the diffusion-solution model for membrane evaluation. First, there is an inverse relationship between membrane and water flux rate. Second, there is a proportional linear relationship between overall water flux rate and the applied pressure across a membrane.
Desalination, 2017
Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) desalination systems powered by Renewable Energy (RE) can reduce drastically costs, specific energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. A direct connection of a SWRO desalination system with RE technologies such as photovoltaics, can result in lowering the specific energy consumption due to the part-load operation of the desalination unit. However, due to the variable nature of solar energy, the membranes could operate outside of their nominal operating ranges. Therefore, research is needed to investigate the effect of the variable operation (non-stable pressure and flow rate) on the membranes. This paper presents the development of a dynamic mathematical model of a spiral wound reverse osmosis membrane module aiming to investigate the mass transfer in the membrane under non-constant operating conditions. The main pursue of the model is to investigate the physical compaction, as well as the raise of the concentration polarization in order to predict the performance of the membrane under variable operating conditions. The results show a water flux drop of 0.2 × 10 − 3 kg/m 2 •s due to the sudden increase in the applied pressure, when the impact of physical membrane compaction was taken into consideration under non-constant operating conditions.
A REVIEW OF DESALINATION SYSTEMS USING THE REVERSE OSMOSIS TECHNIQUE
IAEME PUBLICATION, 2019
Water is and has always been the source of life for humans, animals and every other living organism, but its availability is slowly diminishing by the day. Scarcity of potable and fresh water is a major concern the world over, especially in the Middle East and Africa. There is a need for new, energy efficient and eco-friendly ways of producing fresh water from the vast and abundant sources of saline and brackish water available. Desalination is one of the several ways which have been used to mitigate this problem, and Reverse Osmosis (RO) is generally taking over as the preferred technique of desalination because of its generally higher efficiency and better quality of water produced using generally lower energy. Review of many scholarly articles have shown that the limitations and concerns of using RO technique on water productivity are membrane fouling and high energy consumption in small scale plants. Therefore, efficient energy and membrane solutions are required. The main objective of this paper is to review current and already developed RO desalination methods, membranes and the mathematical modelling and optimization of RO systems using Genetic Algorithm.
Design and operating characteristics of pilot scale reverse osmosis plants
Desalination, 2008
Design and operating characteristics are analyzed for two pilot scale reverse osmosis plants. The first plant is installed in Sharjah to desalinate brackish water for a small community. The second plant is installed in Qatar to test the feasibility of desalting high-salinity seawater for irrigation purposes. Analysis is performed using a semiempirical model, which requires knowledge of membrane salt reject and permeate recovery. Further analysis is made by using a permeability model, which is capable of predicting the required membrane area. Predictions of the two models are in good agreement with the available field data. Both models can provide the plant engineers with a useful tool to assess plant performance and analyze deviations from original design conditions.
Theoretical Data Analysis for a Small Scale Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant
International Journal of Mechanical and Production Engineering Research and Development (IJMPERD), 2021
Reverse Osmosis (RO) has proven to be the most commonly applied technique in desalination technologies owing to its relatively low energy consumption. Ongoing research on improvement of this technology through the analysis of statistical data extracted from experiments and simulation software is being undertaken so as to maximize permeate water while at the same time using minimum energy. Analysis of experimental and theoretical data extracted from experiments and software helps to describe the performance of the RO unit and come up with satisfactory correlation models for the systems. In this article, statistical analysis of different parameters was carried out and several graphs of correlations were plotted against each other. Important RO parameters such as specific energy consumption, temperature, feed pressure and permeate total dissolved salts (TDS) were plotted against each other to come up with their graphical correlations.
2017
Despite being a mature process, production of fresh water using desalination is still a challenge. Desalination is broadly divided into two categories; thermal desalination processes, such as multi-stage flash, and semi- permeable membrane process, such as Reverse Osmosis (RO). This work is aimed at developing correlations for water permeability coefficient (Kw) and salt permeability coefficient (Ks) as a function of feed salinity and pressure using experimental data for a continuous RO process. For three different feed salinities of 15, 25, and 35 g/L at two different pressures of 40 and 45 bara experimental values of Ks and kw values are taken from the literature. Planar and ellipsoidal least square methods are used to correlate kw and Ks as a function of feed salinity and pressure, which are then embedded within the continuous RO process model to evaluate the process performance in terms of maximising the recovery ratio while optimizing the area and pressure to get the desired fr...
Simulation and Optimization of Full Scale Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant
Computer Aided Chemical Engineering, 2010
This paper focuses on steady state performance predictions and optimization of the Reverse Osmosis (RO) process utilizing a set of implicit mathematical equations which are generated by combining solution-diffusion model with film theory approach. The simulation results were compared with operational data which are in good agreement having relative errors of 0.71% and 1.02%, in terms of water recovery and salt rejection, respectively. The sensitivity of different operating parameters (feed concentration, feed flow rate and feed pressure) and design parameters (number of elements, spacer thickness, length of filament) on the plant performance were also investigated. Finally a non linear optimization framework to minimize specific energy consumption at fixed product flow rate and quality while optimizing operating variables (feed flow rate, feed pressure) and design parameters (height of feed spacer, length of mesh filament). Reduction in operating costs and energy consumption up to 50 % can be reached by using pressure exchanger as energy recovery device.
MODELING, SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION OF A REVERSE OSMOSIS DESALINATION PLANT
Trans stellar journals, 2021
Reverse osmosis modeling and simulation is essential in the design of a seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant. Proper procedures will result in designs that will help engineers and designers to come up with optimized plants. This article gives modeling, simulation and optimization of the V & A desalination plant located in Cape Town, South Africa. Mathematical modeling was assumed to be following the basic principles and equations of mass and transport theory. Simulation and optimization were accomplished using Water Application Value Engine simulation software. The optimization results showed a 7.3 % improvement in specific energy consumption (SEC) and about 18 % improvement in permeate productivity using the same membranes, recovery rate and feed total dissolved solids.
A simplified simulation model of RO systems for seawater desalination
Desalination, 2009
Desalination of seawater has been considered as one of the most promising techniques for supplying fresh water in the regions suffering water scarcity. Reverse osmosis (RO) is one of the major technologies for mid-and large-size desalination plants because it offers a means of producing high quality of water from seawater with lower energy consumption than other processes such as evaporation processes. In this study, RO systems for seawater desalination were theoretically investigated to provide insight into the optimum process design. A simple model based on the solution-diffusion theory and multiple fouling mechanisms was developed and used to analyze the performance of RO systems. The effect of recovery ratio and permeate flux on the efficiency of the whole RO system was investigated for a wide range of operating conditions. The model was also applied to optimize the design of RO process for low energy requirement and high boron removal.