Optimization of seawater RO systems design

Wilf, Mark; Klinko, Kenneth

doi:10.1016/s0011-9164(01)00278-8

Cited by 122 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Seawater desalination, at present, provides approximately 1% of the world's drinking water supply, and this percentage is increasing by the year (52). However, membrane fouling is one of the most important practical problems facing RO plant operators and membrane manufacturers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Composition and Variability of Biofouling Organisms in Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants

Zhang

Jiang

Tanuwidjaja

et al. 2011

Appl Environ Microbiol

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Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) membrane biofouling remains a common challenge in the desalination industry, but the marine bacterial community that causes membrane fouling is poorly understood. Microbial communities at different stages of treatment processes (intake, cartridge filtration, and SWRO) of a desalination pilot plant were examined by both culture-based and culture-independent approaches. Bacterial isolates were identified to match the genera Shewanella, Alteromonas, Vibrio, and Cellulophaga based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing analysis. The 16S rRNA gene clone library of the SWRO membrane biofilm showed that a filamentous bacterium, Leucothrix mucor, which belongs to the gammaproteobacteria, accounted for nearly 30% of the clone library, while the rest of the microorganisms (61.2% of the total clones) were related to the alphaproteobacteria. 16S rRNA gene terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis indicated that bacteria colonizing the SWRO membrane represented a subportion of microbes in the source seawater; however, they were quite different from those colonizing the cartridge filter. The examination of five SWRO membranes from desalination plants located in different parts of the world showed that although the bacterial communities from the membranes were not identical to each other, some dominant bacteria were commonly observed. In contrast, bacterial communities in source seawater were significantly different based on location and season. Microbial profiles from 14 cartridge filters collected from different plants also revealed spatial trends.Technological advances in reverse osmosis (RO) membranes during the past decade have significantly reduced the energy cost of water production via desalination. Seawater desalination, at present, provides approximately 1% of the world's drinking water supply, and this percentage is increasing by the year (52). However, membrane fouling is one of the most important practical problems facing RO plant operators and membrane manufacturers. The phenomenon of the accumulation of marine organisms and their metabolic products (i.e., extracellular polysaccharides [EPS], proteins, and lipids) on the membrane surface is known as biofouling (10, 15, 16). Excessive membrane biofouling results in increased energy demand for salt separation and the deterioration of product water quality (1,3,17,45). Although research efforts have been devoted to prevent or alleviate biofouling by, for example, disinfection, chemical cleaning, and aeration (26, 50), these treatments yield temporary results. Advancements in membrane materials and the optimization of operational conditions have contributed to biofouling prevention (25,26,48,51); however, these changes cannot eliminate it. The accelerated growth of biofilm on RO membranes likely is due to the physiological response of the bacteria. Systematic and effective strategies for biofouling control have not been established.Investigations of the microbial community that causes RO membrane fouling have not progres...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Composition and Variability of Biofouling Organisms in Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants

Zhang

Jiang

Tanuwidjaja

et al. 2011

Appl Environ Microbiol

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“…The small-scale database contained SEC data of desalination processes reported in peer-reviewed literature published since 2000 [16,[19][20][21][22]27,35,36,41,42,[52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61], including information for the raw water flow rate q rw (m 3 /day), product water flow rate q pw (m 3 /day), recovery R (unitless), year YR, raw water TDS c rw (mg/L), product water TDS c pw (mg/L), operating (feed) pressure P (bar), energy recovery ER (binary variable, unitless), and temperature T ( • C). These desalination factors, summarized in Table 2, represented the explanatory variables in our multiple linear regression model for small-scale desalination facilities, referred to here as the small-scale model.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For BWRO systems, the theoretical minimum specific energy consumption has been calculated at approximately 0.2 kWh/m 3 ; however, Avlonitis et al state that a theoretical minimum SEC for BWRO might not exist due to the lack of dominance of concentration polarization across the membrane that is present in SWRO systems [35]. Mathematically, the ideal SEC for desalination increases as temperature increases, yet the opposite is true in actual RO systems as salt and water fluxes increase at higher temperatures [35], with diffusion through the membranes increasing at an estimated rate of 3% to 5% per • C [36] up to varying limits of commercial membranes [37], thereby reducing SEC.…”

Section: Technologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting the Specific Energy Consumption of Reverse Osmosis Desalination

Stillwell

Webber

2016

Water

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Desalination is often considered an approach for mitigating water stress. Despite the abundance of saline water worldwide, additional energy consumption and increased costs present barriers to widespread deployment of desalination as a municipal water supply. Specific energy consumption (SEC) is a common measure of the energy use in desalination processes, and depends on many operational and water quality factors. We completed multiple linear regression and relative importance statistical analyses of factors affecting SEC using both small-scale meta-data and municipal-scale empirical data to predict the energy consumption of desalination. Statistically significant results show water quality and initial year of operations to be significant and important factors in estimating SEC, explaining over 80% of the variation in SEC. More recent initial year of operations, lower salinity raw water, and higher salinity product water accurately predict lower values of SEC. Economic analysis revealed a weak statistical relationship between SEC and cost of water production. Analysis of associated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions revealed important considerations of both electricity source and SEC in estimating the GHG-related sustainability of desalination. Results of our statistical analyses can aid decision-makers by predicting the SEC of desalination to a reasonable degree of accuracy with limited data.

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“…The reason for such scenario might be due to the fact that the small scale production plant for this study has just operated for just about six month. In this aspect, the plant system is still considered new and no major maintenance activities are needed to remove scaling in the production membrane; pump servicing is not required; no leakage in the piping system that would reduce the availability of the plant For short-term production, the effect of maintenance effort is usually not noticeable and thus maintenance would be appeared as productivity gap that contributes to reduce the efficiency of any production plant [17], [52], [53]. Model validation is being done by using SPSS software statistical significance one-tailed test at 95% confidence level.…”

Section: Scenario Analysis Of Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%