Hybrid membrane system for desalination and wastewater treatment: Integrating forward osmosis and low pressure reverse osmosis

Since more than 97% of the water in the world is seawater, desalination technologies have the potential to solve the fresh water crisis. The most used desalination technology nowadays is seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO), where a membrane is used as a physical barrier to separate the salts from the water, using high hydraulic pressure as the...

Algal blooms and Membrane Based Desalination Technology

Seawater desalination is rapidly growing in terms of installed capacity (~80 million m3/day in 2013), plant size and global application. An emerging threat to this technology is the seasonal proliferation of microscopic algae in seawater known as algal blooms. Such blooms have caused operational problems in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants...

Particulate and organic matter fouling of seawater reverse osmosis systems: Characterization, modelling and applications

Particulate/colloidal and organic fouling in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) systems results in flux decline, higher energy costs, increased salt passage, increased cleaning frequency, and use of chemicals. In practice, indices like SDI and MFI are used to assess particulate fouling, but they are performed at very high initial flux (> 1500 L/m2...

Development of an environmental impact assessment and decision support system for seawater desalination plants

Seawater desalination is a rapidly growing coastal-based industry. The combined production capacity of all seawater desalination plants worldwide has increased by 30% over the last two years: from 28 million cubic meters per day in 2007—which is the equivalent of the average discharge of the River Seine at Paris—to more than 36 million cubic...

Rejection of Emerging Organic Contaminants by Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis Membranes: Effects of Fouling, Modelling and Water Reuse

The book contains a description of the presence of micropollutants (medicines, hormones, pesticides) in surface water and shows that conventional water treatment poorly removes micropollutants. Nanofiltration and reverse osmosis are more appropriate technologies; however removals can vary depending on the properties of compounds and types of...

Biofouling of spiral wound membrane systems

Biofouling of spiral wound membrane systems High quality drinking water can be produced with membrane filtration processes like reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF). Because the global demand for fresh clean water is increasing, these membrane technologies will increase in importance in the coming decades. One of the most serious...

Rejection of organic micropollutants by high pressure membranes (NF/RO)

The presence of numerous organic micropollutants, such as pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) and hormones, but also pesticides and industrial pollutants, in the sources for the drinking water supply, are a big concern for drinking water utilities. Even though not all pollutants are harmful to human health, less is known about the...