A review of strategies for RO brine minimization in inland desalination plants

Abstract

a b s t r ac tWater scarcity in many inland areas is increasing the demand for new groundwater desalination plants. Co-produced coal seam gas (CSG) water (or coal bed methane as known in the USA), which is mostly brackish, is extracted in huge quantities during CSG production and requires advanced treatment. Reverse osmosis (RO) is the leading technology applied in municipal desalination and for treating CSG water in Australia and in some locations in the USA. Antiscalants are often dosed during RO pretreatment to prevent membrane scaling. Recovery rates are limited by antiscalant efficacy and large volumes of brine are frequently disposed of in evaporation ponds. The search for environmentally friendly methods for RO brine minimization is considered as a key global issue. In this paper, differences between inland and seawater desalination are highlighted. The existing technologies for RO brine minimization and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) for inland desalination are reviewed. The efficacy and application of two scaling reduction technologies for RO brine minimization: (i) acid/antiscalant addition and (ii) 'high pH precipitation treatment' are compared. Finally, more complex ZLD and volume reduction systems, such as the high efficiency RO (HERO™) and the SAL-PROC™, are analyzed as well.

Aligning monitoring of virus barriers in potable reuse with unit process treatment mechanisms and time scales: A critical review and research needs

“…Interest in RO technology has led to recent and ongoing improvements in the membranes themselves; the membrane arrays and their resultant flow patterns; feed conditioning processes; and energy recovery devices. Improvements in RO systems often have multiple objectives, including better broad-spectrum rejection of dissolved constituents or targeted rejection of specified constituents (Xu et al, 2005); higher permeate recovery and reduced brine flow (Rioyo et al, 2017); reduced fouling and scaling (Goosen et al, 2005); and improved energy use (Gude, 2011). While these objectives are all desirable, they are sometimes at odds with each other: for example, an RO system achieving higher recovery will consume more energy and have slightly greater salt passage.…”

Resources recovery—Separation and recovery of copper from desalination brine through Lewatit TP 207 resin

“…The standard methods to manage brine are brine minimization, direct disposal, and reuse (Giwa et al, 2017; Ji et al, 2018; Loganathan et al, 2017; Panagopoulos, 2022c; Panagopoulos et al, 2019; Pramanik et al, 2017; Rioyo et al, 2017; Rodríguez‐DeLaNuez et al, 2012; Sorour et al, 2015). Although reverse osmosis and thermal systems have been updated these years, there is still a large amount of brine during the process (International Desalination Association, 2019).…”

Process simulation of high pH reverse osmosis systems to facilitate reuse of coal seam gas associated water

“…An alternate approach to enhancing water recovery when desalinating CSG associated water is the application of high pH RO systems [16]. Mukhopadhyay [17] described a high-efficiency reverse osmosis (HERO) process which initially involved a weak acid cation (WAC) resin to remove alkaline earth ions and some alkali metals.…”