Evaluating Membrane Technology for Drinking Water Production in Comparison with Conventional Processes. (Dept. EEMT.) (original) (raw)

Experimental and Analytical Study of a Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant

is the reverse osmosis (RO) system. In this paper, a 5000 m 3 /day RO desalination plant in the city of Nuweiba in Sinai, Egypt is taken as a case study. The measured data of the plant are recorded during 5 years of its normal operation. Also, experimental tests are carried out on site to investigate the influence of the main design and operating parameters on the plant performance. The RO system is found to be sensitive to the variation in the feed water temperature, pressure and salinity. The used maintenance schedule is also seen to be suitable for the plant, since the change in plant performance during the operation period is not noticeable. On the other hand, a cost analysis is carried out on the RO plant components. The major factors affecting the cost of product water of this plant are the power consumption and capital cost. Surprisingly, the chemical treatment cost is one of the lowest in percentage. In this case, the power consumption cost is 35.1% and the capital cost is 33.6% and that of maintenance and repairs represent only 4.9% while the chemical treatment represents 10.6% of the total cost.

Performance Evaluation and Design of RO Desalination Plant: Case Study

The aim of this paper is to design a water desalination plant using Reverse Osmosis membrane to treat salt water to be usable for drinkable, domestic, industrial or agricultural uses. RO unit is designed to conservative standards for versatility in the event of feed water quality variations. The design includes a feed water flush cycle to minimize membrane fouling and piping corrosion during shutdown. The system will be all appropriate controls and instrumentation for automatic operation. All system components are available and of heavy duty industrial design and fabricated with the highest quality workmanship. Quality control will be maintained throughout all manufacturing processes. The system will produce permeate water minimum of 3600 m 3 /day with a quality of approximately 100 ppm total dissolved solids (TDS) when operating on well feed water with a 10,000 ppm TDS and a temperature of 25-30 degrees C. The design permeate recovery is 50%; and energy recovery device which saves $30,556.28/year.

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.

TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC CONSIDERATION FOR WATER DESALINATION BY REVERSE OSMOSIS

Product flow rate and salt rejection are the key performance parameters. They are mainly influenced by variable parameters such as feed pressure, feed temperature, and feed water salt concentration. The effect of feed temperature on membrane performance is the most important parameter. A seawater membrane FT30SW-2540 included in a test rig is used to perform the study. The membrane water permeability coefficient K w is determined experimentally by the test rig measured parameters and compared with the projected manufacturer system analysis program (ROSA) for the same operating conditions. Besides, it correlated and presented with the different operating parameters. The results show that the permeate flux increases by increasing the feed pressure and/or increase the feed temperature. For the same system productivity, the increase in the feed water temperature leads to reduce the applied feed pressure. For such case the results also show that; an increase in the feed water temperature by one degree centigrade is associated with a reduction in applied feed pressure by 0.7 % to 1.35 %, a decrease in the membrane salt rejection of almost 1.4%, an increase of permeates flux from 1.11 % to 2.58 %, and a decrease of the specific energy consumption by an average value of 0.29 KW/1000 gal, according to the feed salt concentration and feed pressure. The results show that an increase in feed salt concentration of one gram per liter decreases permeate flux by an average value of 2.41% to 2.8 %, decreases the membrane salt rejection percentage by 0.06 to 0.16, decreases the membrane water permeability coefficient by 1.23%, and increases the specific energy consumption by an average value of 5.073 KW/1000 gal, according to the feed temperature. In addition, the membrane FT30SW-2540 water permeability coefficient is experimentally determined, compared with manufacturer, and correlated as a function of feed salt concentration, feed temperature, and feed pressure.

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.

Development of Desalination system using Reverse Osmosis

2016

The present work are a theoretical and an experimental investigation based on the influence of the main operation parameters on the performance of the RO elements. The theoretical work is experiment is performed in order to measure the total dissolved salts, PH and conductivity of the permeate water when different temperatures and concentrations values for the Feed water. Combined between RO desalination system and heater system would improve the performance of the system as the results which is clarified under the temperature limits to prevent scaling and fouling deposition. Temperature of the feed water is the most noticeable environmental condition affecting the performance of RO systems. The general rule of thumb is to estimate productivity change at 3% per degree Celsius, °C change from the standard of 25 °C. There are equations to provide a more exact estimate of productivity. Pressure is approximated by direct proportionality to productivity. Temperature correction is an expo...

Performance Analysis of Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant, Study Case of BBRI Plant

International Journal For Multidisciplinary Research, 2023

Desalination using seawater resources has been a cornerstone in meeting both human and industrial water demands for several decades. Some well-known methods are thermal desalination and membrane desalination. Among these, membrane desalination stands out, employing reverse osmosis (RO) technology, wherein seawater is pressurized and forced through a semi-permeable membrane to produce purified water. Black Bear Resources Indonesia (BBRI), which operates in the chemical industry relies on RO technology to cater its desalination requirements within the manufacturing facility. Notably, BBRI's desalination plant is equipped with both Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) and Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis (BWRO) modules. In the SWRO unit, the Hydranautic SWC-6 Max membrane is employed, while the BWRO unit features the Hydranautic ESPA-2 LD membrane. Both modules adopt the spiral wound configuration utilizing polyamide composite material. To determine the reliability of factory operations and dependability, a comprehensive performance analysis of the SWRO and BWRO units is imperative. This analysis encompasses critical parameters such as Recovery Rate, Membrane Flux, Percent Rejection, Concentration Rejection, and Specific Energy Consumption (SEC). Notably, performance degradation in both SWRO and BWRO systems primarily stems from membrane fouling, scaling phenomena, and the natural aging of the membranes.

Seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (case study)

Desalination, 2003

This paper presents a case study of the operation and maintenance of 2000 m'/d desalination plant erected in1995. The results have been obtained over 6 years of operation. The plant consists of four units with a capacity 500 m3/d each. The results obtained are used to evaluate and develop the optimum plant operating pressure and temperature. The daily feed salinity, temperature and pressure were recorded, and finally the tota cost for product of potabIe water was calculated. Recommendations were issued regarding the optimum operating conditions and the most pertinent operating problems. A technoeconomical analysis is undertaken in order to evaluate the cost of the water produced and technical reliability of the technology. The objective is to present field results of the reverse osmoses plant operation in order to evaluate the reliability of this technology in comparison with other technologies.

Design of Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant in Suez City (Case Study

Water shortage is an important issue facing the world today. Due to the increasing demands of fresh water in deserted and remote areas, the development of non-conventional water resources in Egypt is essential. A case study for a 3000 m 3 permeates/day RO desalination plant in Ain El Sokhna-Suez, Egypt is reviewed and analyzed. According to the plant location and site characteristics, several considerations have been evaluated in the design of the RO desalination plant. The Design of the plant has been adopted using ROSA software as well as basic design equations for RO system design. Detailed economic study has been adopted to evaluate the feasibility of the plant. The cost calculations of the RO plant indicated that the main factors which affect the cost of the produced water are membrane cost and the power consumption cost, whereas the chemical treatment represents almost 10% of the total cost. Introduction Fresh water shortage nowadays becomes a major problem in many coastal areas. Seawater desalination is used for providing fresh water aimed at both domestic and industrial usage. There are two main methods dominating the desalination process technologies, thermal and membrane-based process. The thermal desalination process has the advantage of using without complicated pre-treatment, nonetheless. It has a disadvantage of high energy consumption. Currently, there is a growing demand on using membrane based seawater desalination technology [1]. Choosing an appropriate seawater pretreatment system is mandatory for providing feed water with low turbidity for the reverse osmosis desalination process. Ultrafiltration membranes used to remove particles, virus, bacteria, moreover eliminating colloidal substance and they are more reliable in producing RO feed water with low fouling potential than using the conventional pre-treatment techniques even through destructive algal blooms event [2]. The process of water recovery of seawater using reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination process ranged between 30% and 40% [3], and there is an important design parameter which determine the size and cost of SWRO desalination system. Nevertheless, the increase of water recovery possibly causes scaling inorganic substances on membrane surface and therefore SWRO systems will require abundant regular membrane cleaning and this may lead to short membrane life and membrane replacement [4-5]. Hence, increasing the water recovery of SWRO process while evading membrane scaling has become a significant goal. Shammiri and Dawas [6] found that when reducing the feed water pH from 7.2 to 7.0, even if no scale inhibitor has been added, the water recovery of SWRO plant has been improved from 22.5% to 34.2%, without any damage to the membrane surface due to scaling. Kurihara and coworkers [7-9] designed a brine conversion system (BCS) consists of two stages for SWRO desalination process where an 60% overall water recovery has been attained. Kim et al. [10] designed a multistage RO system for the desalination of seawater on 5 m 3 /h pilot plant using micro-filtration as a pre-treatment technique, the results showed that the water recovery successfully increased from 30% up to 50%. The main issue in desalination technologies, either membrane or thermal, is the energy cost as these processes are energy intensive. In the attempt to reduce operating cost, RO systems with large scale are nowadays equipped to improve the mechanical compression energy from the discharged concentrated brine stream [11].

Fifteen years of R&D program in seawater desalination at KISR part II. RO system performance

Desalination, 2001

Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) and the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) collaborated over the past 15 years in developing and adapting the seawater reverse osmosis (RO) technology to the Gulf seawater conditions (one and half time the salinity of open seas and large temperature variations between summer and winter in the range of 35°C and 10°C, respectively). The development process went through several stages involving performance evaluation of three types of membrane configurations under various operating conditions and using different types of feed water pretreatment techniques. It went also through the evaluation of various commercially available energy recovery systems and the development of a new system. During this period, the RO research program evaluated the performance of ten different seawater membranes, cleaning and restoration techniques and procedures, using various potential agents. Furthermore, computer aided design program and process design and optimization procedures were developed specifically for Gulf seawater conditions. The studies also involved two-phase evaluation of multistage flash/reverse osmosis (MSF/RO) hybrid systems. Cost assessment of product water from RO under different operating conditions and various system configurations was always an important integrated part of each research project.