Forward osmosis is an engineered osmotically-driven membrane process that uses
osmotic pressure of concentrated solutions, including seawater, to extract clean water from
diluted solution. In a new approach, forward osmosis uses the salinity difference between
seawater and impaired water as the driving forces to dilute seawater with a source of reclaimed
water. By diluting the seawater feed stream to a reverse osmosis desalination plant, the energy
demand of desalination is reduced, and two tight barriers are in place to enhance the rejection of
contaminants that might be present in the impaired water feed stream. The process was tested on
both bench and pilot scale with secondary and tertiary effluents from a domestic wastewater
treatment plant and with impaired surface water from the South Platte River. While water flux
was generally low, flux decline due to fouling was minimal after weeks of continuous operation.
Additionally, the multiple membrane barriers provided greater than 90% rejection of both
organic and inorganic solutes. The hybrid forward osmosis / reverse osmosis process
was found to be both economically and technically feasible over a broad range of operating
conditions. Includes 2 references, table, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. - No. |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 810 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 6 |
| Published : | 11/01/2009 |
