i An update to this article is included at the end

Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Pilot studies on high recovery BWRO-EDR for near zero liquid discharge approach
Y. Oren a,⁎, E. Korngold a, N. Daltrophe a, R. Messalem a, Y. Volkman a, L. Aronov a, M. Weismann a,
N. Bouriakov a, P. Glueckstern b, J. Gilron a
a
Department for Desalination and Water Treatment, Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
b
Mekorot Development & Enterprise LTD, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: A hybrid process combining reverse osmosis and electrodialysis has been shown to be effective in recovering
Received 24 May 2010 97–98% of brackish water as product water with chloride levels of 200 mg/L or less. Potential for scaling on
Received in revised form 1 June 2010 the brine side of the electrodialysis unit was prevented by acidification, operating the electrodialysis in a
Accepted 2 June 2010
reversal mode (EDR), and a side loop crystallizer which prevented buildup of scaling components. Settlers,
Available online 29 June 2010
inline microfiltration, and side-loop ultrafiltration kept suspended solids from returning to the EDR unit. This
process was demonstrated in a series of more than eighty batch experiments of 1.5 to 1.8 m3 of RO
Keywords:
BWRO
concentrate of raw brackish groundwater from the Negev Highland, Israel. Each batch could be processed
EDR within a single day. The feed-water was concentrated from 0.3% to over 10% TDS super-concentrate while
Near ZLD producing the water that could be recycled to the RO permeate. This super-concentrate from the EDR unit
Inland desalination was further concentrated in a wind powered WAIV unit that brought final brine TDS to N 30%, and showed
promise as a method to recover mineral byproducts such as magnesium salt. Initial economic estimates show
that this hybrid process is competitive with conventional RO and other enhanced recovery processes for
inland desalination requiring use of evaporation ponds.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Inland brackish water desalination is becoming an important
source for water in particular in areas that are remote from the sea.
According to Zhoua and Tolb [1], 23% of the installed world
desalination capacity comes from deep and shallow brackish water.
As desalination is applied in increasingly larger scale and varied
locations, the issue of concentrate disposal is becoming an increasing
challenge [2–4]. Estimates show that it can be in the order of 15% of
the costs of desalination in the case of inland sites [5]. This is especially
so at many inland installations which are located more than 80 km
from the sea coast where disposal of concentrate to the sea becomes
economically prohibitive. Mickley [4] has surveyed the various
methods for dealing with concentrate. These include: discharge to
surface waters and wastewater treatment plants, deep well injection,
land disposal (spray irrigation), evaporation ponds, mechanical/
thermal evaporation (zero discharge). The use of the first three
options depends on the geographical location and the nature of the
brine. Sometimes in inland locations, surface waters that would not be
significantly polluted by the brine are not available. If they receive
concentrate from large-scale desalination installations, sewage works
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: yoramo@bgu.ac.il (Y. Oren).
will put out treated effluent with a higher salt load than may be
permitted for downstream use. While deep well injection is used in
some regions, such as Florida, the geological conditions are not always
appropriate for this solution. Land disposal can lead to salinization of
soil and must usually be diluted with secondary wastewater effluent
before application. Mechanical/thermal evaporation is economically
prohibitive in many cases.
The philosophy behind the zero liquid discharge (ZLD) approach is
to further concentrate the brine towards near or, if possible to
complete dryness in cost effective methods. The removed water can
be recycled to the process for increasing its recovery ratio. The
remaining, reduced volume waste is a dry or semidry solid that should
be disposed off in special sites.
The various kinds of brine volume minimization schemes using
thermal, membrane and other techniques have been reviewed by van
der Bruggen et al. [6]. Mechanical/thermal evaporation is usually
applied to reach zero discharge because of the highly concentrated
solutions that must be evaporated. This has been most intensively
used in the power industry where waste heat is abundant and
regulations severely limit the discharge of effluent [7,8]. A major
problem with evaporation of such concentrated brines is the
formation of scale on the heat exchange surfaces. Various special
evaporators have been constructed and seeded precipitation techni-
ques have been proposed to overcome this problem [9,10].
Where thermal techniques are required, the high-energy cost of
thermal evaporation, even with highly efficient evaporators, creates a

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2010.06.010
322 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330
premium on pre-concentrating the brine by other techniques
beforehand so that only the smallest volumes will be fed to the
evaporators. RO is often proposed for this purpose [11,12], but
recoveries are limited by sparingly soluble salts. ED has also been used
for this purpose and has been combined with RO to reduce the overall
volume sent to brine concentrators [12]. However the overall recovery
of the combined ED/RO step was still only 64% of the feed derived
from ion exchange regeneration and RO brine from the pre-ion
exchange desalination step [12]. This is in part also due to
precipitation of sparingly soluble salts in either the RO or ED stages.
Rautenbach and coworkers [13,14] have proposed a way to overcome
this in ED by using seeded precipitation from the ED brine stream with
a settler to remove the precipitated solids. It has been found [16] that
this is problematic because of hydraulic limitations in settlers
requiring impractically large tank volumes when dealing with the
flow rates to be expected in actual BWRO processes for drinking water
production.
ZLD has been regarded for many years as an uneconomic solution
and, therefore was employed in limited cases. However, the
increasing rate of population growth, scarcity of water in many places
around the globe, and the growing awareness about the need for
environment protection has brought this issue back to focus.
Accordingly, new ZLD technologies are today developed and new,
more cost-effective options are now available. Furthermore, there is a
long-term practical experience available for designing new industrial
plants and for optimizing the functions of existing plants. In particular
this experience includes innovative solutions in handling industrial
streams and municipal wastewater. In other words, the ZLD approach
is becoming an important strategy in managing water resources
towards maximizing water savings, reducing desalination and water
treatment costs and protecting water resources and the environment.
In this investigation a series of processes involving EDR and WAIV
[15] are operated in a fully synchronized fashion to achieve the
following goals: a) Increasing the overall recovery of the desalination
process and the cost of brine handling by minimizing its volume and
by recycling the water that is removed from the brine; b) Prevention
of scaling and fouling in the EDR and WAIV units which could
otherwise lead to water production loss or increased energy
consumption; c) Reduced energy consumption due to exploitation
of wind energy and synergetic combination of the processes, and d)
Preservation of the vapor pressure driving force in the WAIV unit by
prior removal of ions such as calcium and magnesium that otherwise
would lead to concentrated solutions with low vapor pressure. If
greater volume reductions were required, magnesium could be
precipitated in the crystallizer by adding base and carbonate.
While electrodialysis has been proposed in the past for recovering
water from RO concentrates, it has not been operated with high levels
of brine concentration (N10% TDS) in the brine recycled stream, and
also it has not previously been tested on RO concentrates from
brackish waters. In previous work by Korngold et al [16,17]), it was
shown that these concentration levels could be achieved with EDR,
provided that CaSO4 scaling is avoided by a constant removal through
precipitating in a seeding/settling device. By operating at such high
EDR brine concentrations and reducing the diluate concentration to
that of an inter-stage RO feed, the overall voltage drops could be kept
at the lowest possible. Subsequently, energy consumption in this EDR
step is minimized.
While seeded precipitation has been proposed in the past to
reduce supersaturation in the electrodialysis brine [13,14], the
method involved sludge contactors and settlers. These place a
hydrodynamic restraint on the process since linear flow rates up
through the settler cannot exceed the settling velocities of the
smallest crystals. As a result, when large volumetric rates must be
treated by such precipitation, huge tank volumes may be required. By
introducing a barrier of MF or UF, it is expected to limit the tank
volume to that needed for contact time to cause precipitation. Also,
MF or UF can guarantee that micro-crystallites are eliminated by
removing crystal nuclei above the critical size.
A pilot unit, capable of treating BWRO concentrate at a maximum
rate of 500 L/h was constructed at the BGU Desalination Pilot
Facilities. In this article we present the results obtained from long-
term operation experiments with raw brackish water taken from the
brackish water well field at the Negev Highlands, Israel. This article
will be mainly focused on the RO-EDR-Crystallizer/settler-UF chain.
The WAIV piloting results were discussed in a separate publication
[18].
2. Experimental
2.1. The pilot concept
In this study a combined process is investigated to increase water
recovery and approach zero liquid discharge from RO brackish water
desalination brines. The processes integrated as a treatment chain are:
a) Electrodialysis reversal (EDR) operating on the RO concentrate; b)
Crystallizer/settler with microfiltration or ultrafiltration (MF/UF) to
relieve supersaturation of sparingly soluble salts in the brine recycle
stream of the EDR process; and c) Wind Aided Intensified Evaporation
(WAIV) [15] to turn the bleed from the ED brine recycle stream into a
solid or semisolid.
The scheme illustrating the concept of the studied processes is
shown in Fig. 1. A brine stream (1) from an RO desalination process is
fed to an ED unit where it is desalted. The desalted stream (2 + 3) is
returned as a feed to a second RO stage or can be added to the main RO
permeate stream (4), depending on the quality of stream (2). The
brine stream (7) of the EDR unit, more than 10% in TDS, is fed into a
crystallizer, pumped through a submerged UF membrane module and
circulates (7′) through the EDR brine compartments. Sparingly
soluble salts are precipitated within the seeded crystallizer and
collected at its' bottom. Since the antiscalant used in the BWRO is left
in the EDR diluate stream (2) and do not reach the brine stream (7),
the crystal growth in the latter to relieve supersaturation can occur in
an unimpeded fashion.
To prevent the return of the suspended crystal solids to the EDR
stack, a settling tank is installed after the seeded crystallizer from
which the clear non-turbid supernatant is pumped through a dead
end submerged ultrafiltration unit. This is done to remove the
suspended solids so that a crystal-free stream (7′) is returned to the
brine recycle stream containing much lower content of sparingly
soluble salts, thus approaching their saturation concentration. It is
clear that the settler is limited by the rate at which crystallites could
settle by gravity and small crystallites could be entrained in the up-
flow, thus limiting the crystallizer's capacity. Similarly it has been
found that filters with pore size above 1 μm will not adequately retain
the crystallites and in such case precipitation will occur in the recycle
stream (7′).
A bleed stream (6) containing a high content of dissolved and
suspended solids is led away from the crystallizer. Bleeding rate from
the crystallizer tank is governed by the rate of osmosis and
electroosmosis through the ion exchange membranes in the EDR
unit. This bleed stream is fed to the WAIV unit where wind evaporates
the remaining liquid and the deposit drops off the evaporation
surfaces onto collection troughs underneath the WAIV unit. The WAIV
unit itself could in some circumstances be used for precipitation of the
sparingly soluble salts in place of the crystallizer, and the liquid that
runs off the bottom of the WAIV evaporation surfaces will be returned
to the brine recycle stream (7′) of the EDR.
2.2. Equipment and operational conditions
RO concentrate of raw brackish groundwater from the Negev
Highlands, Israel was prepared in a 1 m3/h unit with four 4 in. × 40 in.
 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330
Fig. 1. Schematic presentation of the proposed ZLD process.
Filmtec BW-30 RO membrane modules (two pressure vessels,
connected in parallel, each containing two modules). The system
was operated in an open loop concentration mode, namely the 250 L
feed tank of the unit was filled with raw brackish water which was fed
to the membrane modules by a high pressure pump. The concentrate
was recycled to the tank, while permeate was withdrawn and
discarded. During the initial experiments, raw water was added
periodically to the tank to replenish the amount of permeate until the
planned VCF (volume concentration factor) ranging from 4.0 to 8 was
achieved. In the following experiments the raw water was continu-
ously added to the feed tank while withdrawing the concentrate at a
constant concentration or VCF. The requested salt level in the
concentrate was obtained by adjusting precisely the recycling flow
rate.
The raw water was pre-treated by acidification with HCl to
pH = 6.5 and by addition of sodium hexametaphosphate (Calgon) or
PC191(PermaTreat) as antiscalants. The recycle flow rate was kept
constant at 1160 L/h. Permeation rate changed gradually from 320 L/
h at VCF = 1 to 130–150 L/h at VCF = 4. Feed pressure to the
membrane modules was set at 14.9 bars. The rejection (based on
conductivity measurements) was continuously monitored and kept at
96–97%.
An EDR stack by PCCell GmbH (Germany), Model EDR ED 1000H
with the following characteristics was used: 50 cell pairs fed in parallel,
total active area, 5 m2 with Asahi AMV and CMV membranes and
spacer thickness 0.5 mm. Membrane area for electrical current flow is
1000 cm2. The EDR rack system with piping, controls and power
supply was constructed by Nirosoft, Israel. An artist view of the EDR
unit with its controls and the accompanying tanks is shown in Fig. 2.
In each experiment 1500 to 1800 L of BWRO concentrate was
circulated through the EDR diluate compartments from a 2000 L tank.
The volume of the EDR brine container was 100 L. Brine and diluate
flow rate through the EDR stack were 500 to 700 l/h, corresponding to
an average linear velocity of 2.5 cm/s. The maximum calcium sulfate
oversaturation in the stack reached 35%. Cell-pair voltage was 0.5–1 V,
and current density was in the range 10 to 22 mA/cm2. The EDR
323
system was operated for 6–12 h per day with polarity reversal every
1 h. Before shutting the unit down after each operation period, it was
operated for half hour with unsaturated solution at short circuit and
bypassing the crystallizer and the settler to wash out the over-
saturated solution in the brine container and brine EDR cells.
The typical ionic compositions of the raw brackish water feed to
the RO unit and the BWRO concentrate are given in Table 1.
Sulfuric acid was added to the EDR diluate feed to reach a pH 4 at
the beginning of each batch, and periodically to the electrode rinsing
solutions to maintain a pH 1.5 to 2 so that the EDR brine pH was stable
in the range of 2.0 to 2.2. Blow down of the EDR brine was controlled
by the conductivity that was kept constant (80 mmho/cm at the initial
experiments and 140 mmho/cm in the later ones). The make up for
the EDR brine was done automatically with tap water at about 10 l/
h and by electroosmosis through the membranes of the diluate
compartments.
Seeded crystallization and settling tanks were made of polypro-
pylene with volumes of 680 L and 830 L respectively. In typical
experiments they contained 600 L and 633 L of EDR brine solution
respectively.The UF crystallizer was equipped with two 1 m2 Zee-
Weed-500 (by GE-Zenon, Canada) module, composed of reinforced
hollow fibers with pore-size of 0.04 μm and made of PVDF. Each
module was installed within a 30 L tank containing 18 L solution. The
two containers are connected in parallel with a self sustained flow
control system that allows well controlled and timed backwash. The
vacuum range applied by a peristaltic pump to the inner side of the
hollow fibers is 17 to 24 kPa with filtration rate of 200 to 160 l/
h which is just a fraction of the total 550 l/h circulated through the
EDR brine tank. Backwash with UF product water was employed for
30 s every 5 min and chemical cleanings with citric acid 2% and with
deionized water was used occasionally.
3. Results and discussion
The EDR diluate composition for a typical experiment as a function
of the experiment time and the EDR brine composition as a function of
324 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330

Fig. 2. An artist view of the EDR with tanks.

the experiment number are presented in Figs. 3 and 4 respectively. It
is clear from Fig. 3 that the concentrations of all the ionic components
in the diluate decrease steadily during each single batch experiment.
A clear exception in this case is silica as its concentration remains
almost unchanged. It should be noted that the rate of decrease of
chloride ions with CMV and AMV membranes used in these
experiments was comparable to that of the sulfate ions, in contrary
to the case with AMT CMT membranes used in the previous small
scale experiments where chloride ions were removed faster than
sulfate[5]. However, the rate of silica removal through these
membranes was significantly lower compared to that with AMT/
CMT. This phenomenon may be attributed to the differences in water
splitting rate at the membrane/solution interface between the two
types of anion exchange membranes being lower with the CMV/AMV
membrane pair. This important point is now under thorough
investigation. Transport rate of silica may be of a crucial importance
in the current process since on one hand, upon crossing the
membrane to the EDR brine compartments it may cause precipitation
of silica and silicates (such as talcum — Mg3Si4O10(OH)2) on the
membrane surface or within the brine compartment. Once this
happen the hydrodynamic resistance of the brine compartments as
well as the electrical resistivity of the anion exchange membranes
may significantly increase. These phenomena were clearly observed in
the previous, small scale experiments [5]. On the other hand, if silica
remains intact in the diluate, further use of the product water
emerging from the EDR may be limited unless some measures are
taken to reduce silica concentration. This can be done for instance, by
combining the EDR diluate stream with the BWRO product where an
estimated dilution by a factor of 4.5 could be achieved.
An analysis of the buildup of the EDR brine composition during the
first 43 batch experiments shown in Fig. 4 reveal that the concentra-
tions of ions such as Cl− and Mg2+ of soluble salts increased steadily,
while those of SO2− 4 and Ca2+ increased more slowly due to CaSO4
precipitation. As the equivalent concentration of sulfate in the EDR
feed solution was higher than that of Ca2+, its concentration in the
EDR brine slowly increased and Ca2+ concentrations changed in
response to solution composition. As can be seen in Fig. 4, SiO2
concentration in the EDR brine remains almost constant, at ∼30 ppm.
A total salt concentration of 1.5–1.8 N was reached implying 97.5 to
98% recovery ratio. The time averaged coulombic efficiency for
achieving that is 70 to 80%.
Turbidity and the percent of CaSO4 oversaturation in the EDR brine
stream immediately at the outlet of the brine compartments are
shown in Figs. 5 and 6, respectively. The turbidity shown in Fig. 5 was
monitored for 25 h on a constantly stirred sample taken from the EDR
brine vessel, indicating a continuing increase due to CaSO4 precipi-
tation in the highly oversaturated solution. After the brine stream had
passed through the precipitator, gypsum oversaturation was in the
range of 2 to 5%, as in the previous study [17], and turbidity after 1 μm
filtration was at the range of 0–0.1 NTU. The percent of CaSO4

Table 1
Composition of raw brackish water feed and BWRO concentrate (VCF = 3.5–4).

Ions Conductivity. Cl− Ca2+ Mg2+ SO2−

4 F− Sr2+ Ba2+ K+ Na+ SiO2 P Al3+ Cu2+
−1
Units mmho cm ppm
Solution

RO feed 4.44 1115 196 415.5 1.38 5.60 0.04 18.4 651 24.07 0.00 0.06 0.02
RO concentrate 15.54 4817 959.4 378.5 2560.3 6.22 23.3 0.18 70.4 2024 87.33 0.98 0.08 0.03
 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330
Fig. 3. EDR diluate concentrations of several ions vs. time during a single experiment
with 5 m2 stack.
oversaturation in the brine stream and in the precipitator was
measured during all the EDR experiments. Examples of these
measurements are given in Figure 11 in [17]. Fig. 6 shows that at
the beginning of each experiment, when Ca2+ electro-transport flux is
high, the extent of oversaturation increased but becomes low at the
end of the experiment due to reduced Ca2+ ions transport rates. The
total precipitation rate was 300 to 400 g gypsum per hour.
Water composition was examined continuously in the EDR diluate
and brine solutions. Salt content in the BWRO concentrate was
reduced to a level of 18–20 mN, which is suitable for mixing with the
BWRO permeate as illustrated in Fig. 1. The change of cell-pair
resistance of the EDR stack with brine compartment concentration is
shown in Fig. 7 for some different experiments. As expected, the
resistance of the stack decreases as the brine conductivity increases.
There are also no significant differences in that respect between the
different experiments. However, as discussed below, a closer look at
the results reveals a different, unexpected behavior.
The total current, Itotal flowing through the stack, the applied
voltage Vtotal and the specific resistance of the inlet and outlet solution
in the diluate compartments were constantly monitored as a function
of time during each experiment, from these measurements the total
stack resistance Rstack expressed as
Vtotal
Rstack = ð1Þ
Itotal
Fig. 4. Changes of brine concentration vs. the experiment number with 5 m2 stack.
325
Fig. 5. Turbidity of an oversaturated EDR brine solution vs. time at the exit of the stack
(experiment 36). In this case, after sampling the turbidity in the sample was monitored
as a function of time while stirring.
is determined at different times during the experiment as a function
of the logarithmic mean γ D ̅ of the specific resistances of the inlet and
outlet solutions in the diluate compartments. In most of the cases, a
fairly good linear regression could be obtained.
This behavior can be interpreted as follows: At each time domain
during an experiment, the total stack resistance is an algebraic
summation of the single resistances of the different components in
the stack according to,

 Ncp lξ
C A
Rstack = Relectrodes + Ncp RM + RM + ðγD + γB Þ ð2Þ
A
where, Relectrodes, RCM, RAM, Ncp, A, γ̅D, and γ̂ B are the resistance of the
electrode compartments, the resistance of the cation and anion
exchange membranes, the number of cell pairs (50 for the present
case), the membrane area available for the flowing current (in the
present case, 1000 cm2), the specific resistances of the diluate and the
brine compartments (logarithmic averaged between the inflow and
outflow solutions), respectively; l is the geometric gap between each
two membranes in the diluate and brine compartments and ξ is a
parameter convoluting the shielding effect of the spacer forming the
gap between each two membranes and the effect of membrane and
spacer fouling and scaling due to precipitation of organics and
sparingly soluble components. Taking this into account, ξ is always
larger than 1. The effective inter-membrane gap leff., is defined as,
leff : = lξ ð3Þ
Fig. 6. Gypsum oversaturation in brine at the exit of the EDR stack as a function of the
experiment duration, during experiment number 37.
326 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330
Fig. 7. Electrical resistance per cell pair vs. ERD brine conductivity with RO brine and
NaCl solution (5289 ppm Cl− in tap water) as feeds.
Assuming that the resistance of the electrode compartments and the
membranes remains practically constant throughout an experiment,
and γ ̅B bb γ ̅D, Eq. (2) is reduced to,
0 Ncp leff :
Rstack = Rstack + γD
A hours. However, for the EDR step, the BWRO concentrate was stored
where, R0stack = Relectrodes + Ncp(RCM + RAM), is the stack resistance when
solution with high concentrations are flowing through the diluate and
brine compartments where practically their ohmic resistance is
negligible. Since, as assumed above no change of electrode and
membrane resistance occur during an experiment as well as at the
different experiments, this parameter should remain practically
constant.
From the slopes of the regression lines of Rstack vs. γ ̅D, leff. can be
calculated according to,
A concentrate from 200 mN to 20 mN. Fig. 9 shows a typical trend of the
leff : = ðslopeÞ
Ncp
Fig. 8 shows the trends of both leff and R0stack during the experiments
ranging from 42 to 81. The BWRO concentrate in the various
experiments was prepared according to the following conditions: in
experiments 42 through 59 and 66 through 81, the VCF was 4 and
Calgon (sodium hexametaphosphate) was used as an antiscalant; in
experiments 60 through 65, the VCF was 8.3 while the antiscalant is
PC 191. It is clear from the Figure that, as expected, R0stack remains
Fig. 8. Effective inter-membrane gap and the EDR stack resistance at high solution
concentrations in the diluate and brine compartments as a function of experiment
number. The BWRO concentrate feed conditions at the different experiments are noted
on the abscissa: Calgon and PC 191 are commercial formulas added as antiscalants to
the BWRO feed.
practically unaffected by the experimental conditions while leff
increased by at least 60% in the course of experiments 60 to 65
indicating an increase in the stack internal resistance.The actual
reason for that is yet unclear but it is suspected that precipitation of
sparingly soluble salts happened within the stack during experiments
60 to 65 when a changed was made in the VCF of the BWRO
concentrate from 4 (75% recovery) to 8.3 (88% recovery) in order to
tests the limits of the process with respect to the brackish water used
in these experiments. It was also assumed that the low silica transport
through Asahi AMV membranes composing the EDR stack will allow
an increase in the silica concentration in the BWRO concentrate/EDR
feed that eventually will not precipitate in the EDR brine circulation
lines. However, the BWRO concentrate, becoming oversaturated with
silica and gypsum due to the high VCF, probably resulted in these
precipitating in the EDR diluate lines, causing an increase in stack
electrical resistance as reflected in leff. In the experiments following
65, VCF = 4 was used again. Nevertheless, the original leff values could
not be restored even after a thorough cleaning procedure including
NaOH at pH 11, sodium metabisulfite 1% and deionized water.
The above conclusion is supported by a mass imbalance of some
ions and silica between the inlet and the outlet streams in the BWRO
concentrate, indicating a possible precipitation even at this early stage
in the treatment chain. In the BWRO concentrate, we used 1 ppm
Calgon, or PC 191 as antiscalants which prevent scaling only for a few
ð4Þ
for up to one day in the EDR feed tank so that at the conditions of 88%
recovery (VCF = 8.3) scaling could occur both in the EDR diluate feed
tank and in the diluate compartments. Therefore, in the experiments
that followed 65, the BWRO recovery was maintained at 75%
(VCF = 4) to avoid further precipitation due to high oversaturation.
In fact, when using a “once through” flow mode in the diluate
compartments, higher recoveries of the BWRO concentrate / EDR feed
can be considered only if it appears that there is no risk of silica
precipitation within the EDR stack.
Energy requirement for EDR as a function of brine concentration
shows that 5–6 kWh/m3 are required for desalinating the BWRO
ð5Þ
total energy consumption as well as of each one of its components
during a batch experiment while reducing the salt content in the EDR
diluate stream. In these calculations the mixing energy demand in the
crystallization/precipitation tank as well as that for the total pumping
in the system, were taken into account in addition to the energy
demand for the desalination process. Since the three components are
dependent on the desalination time, they increase upon reducing the
salt content in the diluate stream. As long as the diluate concentration
is high enough a linear relationship between the different energy
Fig. 9. Cumulative energy requirement for BWRO concentrate desalination by EDR.
Starting and final concentration are 198 mN and 18 mN respectively (experiment 44).
 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330
components and the diluate concentration is observed. This tendency
is changed towards the lower concentrations as longer time periods
are required to desalinate each unit volume of the diluate stream.
The experiments conducted with the UF setup were aimed at
learning about the water quality that can be obtained and the integrity
of the membranes under long operation. In these sense, the results are
quite promising as turbidity b0. 1 NTU were obtained in all the
experiments and the membrane integrity was preserved. However, in
order to maintain a smooth operation and to avoid high TMP's, a
backwash practice was applied as mentioned in the Experimental
section. It should be stressed that in this phase of the study just part of
the settler outflow was treated by the UF unit. These conditions are far
from satisfactory and in future studies this unit will have to be more
challenged.
4. Economic analysis
The economic analysis for the RO/EDR/UF crystallizer–settler/
Brine disposal treatment chain was carried out on the basis of a
comparison of relative energy, chemical and capital costs based on
costs in Israel. The operating and capital costs used as a basis for
comparison are given in Table 1-A. Energy, capital charge and brine
removal costs are provided in Table 2-A.
To simplify the calculations, we have only used the feed
abstraction/pretreatment, power and capital costs for the RO section
since these are the main contributors to the costs of this section as a
function of recovery with other cost centers being relatively
insensitive. Chemical costs for acid in the EDR section are also
included, based on 105 €/metric ton of sulfuric acid. The overall costs
for the desalination and brine recovery can be divided into three cost
centers, that is, RO, EDR-UF-settler and brine disposal.
The overall costs/m3 of product water is given by the following
equations:
WCtot = UCRO ⋅VRO + UCEDR ⋅VEDR + UCBrine ⋅VBrine
where V is the volume (m3) concerned, WCTOT is the total water cost,
UC are unit water costs (€/m3) and subscripts refer to the process step.
The overall unit cost for product water is therefore given by:
WCtot Y Y 1−Ytot
UCtot = = UCRO ⋅ RO + UCEDR ⋅ EDR + UCBrine ⋅ ð7Þ
VRO + VEDR Ytot Ytot Ytot
where Y refers to the product water volume relative the feed volume.
To gauge the economic viability of EDR for enhanced recovery the
case of Negev Highlands well water is considered with the
composition given in Table 1.With the present generation of
antiscalants, it is possible to treat Negev Highlands water to 88%
recovery (Glueckstern, [19]). If no further recovery is used (namely,
YRO = YTOT) this gives the following total water cost per unit volume:
1−YRO;base 3 For EDR operation on the RO brines studied in the lab pilot unit, it
UCTOT = 0:301 + 1:4⋅ = 0:491 € = m
YRO;base
This sets an upper bound on the costs of the EDR treatment step.
Setting EDR process costs and brine disposal costs of EDR concentrate
equal to the base case RO brine disposal costs and lost product water
from RO brine gives:
UCBrine ð1−Ytot ÞVFeed + UCEDR YEDR VFeed b



bUCBrine 1−YRO;base VFeed + UP Ytot −YRO;base VFeed
This can be rearranged to give:


YTOT −YRO;base ⋅ðUCbrine + UP Þ
UCED ≤ ð10Þ
YED
327
where for the base case YRO,base is taken as 88%, and UP is the value of
the additional product water (taken as 3.5 NIS/m3 = 0.73 €/m3 after
Jan 2010 based on average Israel water tariff cited in [22]). Using the
relation in Eq.(10) we generate the upper bound for the unit process
costs of the EDR step as a function of recovery in the RO step and the
value of the total recovery.
To calculate the present energy and capital costs for the ED step we
took the actual energy usage and pressure drops from the above pilot
study. Future developments and system understanding may allow
improved economics. The actual values for calculating energy
consumptions and pressure drops are provided in Table 3-A and
were discussed in the previous section.
The extent of salt removal required in EDR is related to the extent
of chloride removal since this is the ion that is most challenging for
both drinking and agricultural purposes. To calculate the total amount
of chloride removal required we set up a mass balance for the chloride
ion in the feed, concentrate and total product streams:
Vtot Ctarget + Vdsp Cdsp = VFeed CFeed VFeed CFeed
 
Ctarget
Vdsp Cdsp = VFeed CFeed ⋅ 1−Ytot ⋅
CFeed



= VD;out CR;RO −CD;out + VR;RO −VD;out ⋅CR;RO
ð11Þ
The second equality in this equation shows that the total amount of
chloride to be removed in the EDR step depends on the total recovery,
but does not depend on how the total volume recovery is achieved
between the RO and ED steps. However the amount removed in the EDR
step will be divided between the part removed by the current and the
part removed by direct volumetric transfer from the RO concentrate to
the EDR brine. In addition, the energy requirements of the EDR step is a
function of the recovery in the RO step, because higher recovery in the
ð6Þ RO step allows higher average diluate concentrations in the EDR, leading
to lower resistance and power consumption. This is shown by the
following equation for the specific EDR power consumption:
!2
Ncp Q D ΔCD
EEDR = 2⋅ΔPst RR = ηpump + F Rcp : ð12Þ
QD ηEDR
The subscript CP refers to cell pairs and RCP is the cell pair
resistance, Q DΔCD is the rate of total anions (or cations) removed.RR in
expression (12) is the recycle rate referring to how many times the
diluate must be recycled through the stack per rate of diluate
production. While the actual value in the pilot experiments was 3.5,
for economic calculations we used RR = 1, i.e. a once through
arrangement but with more than one stack in series for achieving a
similar product composition. The number 2 comes from the require-
ment to recycle the concentrate stream of the stack at the same rate.
ð8Þ
was shown that most of the current was used to remove chloride as long
as the ratio of chloride to sulfate did not drop below 0.8. On the other
hand, in the larger scale pilot plant (5 m2 of cell pairs) using different
membranes, a smaller fraction of the current was carried by chloride
ions in the anion exchange membranes. The overall review of existing
pilot data confirms that for a final chloride concentration of 200 mg/L in
the RO permeate — EDR diluate blend, the ratio of equivalents of
chloride removed to total equivalents of anions removed in the EDR step
ð9Þ
was about 0.67 and this was used throughout the rest of the calculations.
At the same time the pilot unit stack current efficiency was somewhat
higher than that for the lab unit (0.81 in pilot vs. 0.65 in the lab).
Because of sizing the number of cell pairs by fixing the linear flow rate
through each cell pair (5.8 cm/s), this will be dictated primarily by the
total amount of volume to be treated, so it will be sensitive to the RO
recovery. Also, the RO concentrate flow rate will directly affect the size of
328 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330

the settler and UF unit as these will be proportional to a fraction of the aiming at increasing the process recovery toN 98% and decreasing the
diluate flow rate. For sizing the crystallizer and UF sections, it is assumed, disposed concentrate volume to minimum that is, to near complete
based on the findings in the pilot experiments, that two complete units dryness. For achieving that, further concentration of the BWRO brine with
(one for each of the first two EDR stacks in series) are needed, each sized EDR and WAIV is proposed. In order to protect the EDR from precipitation
for the concentrate flow rate (equal to diluate flow rate) in order to of sparingly soluble components such as CaSO4 and BaSO4 , a chain of
remove excess scaling ions that will only significantly transfer in the first treatments including a seeding crystallizer and settler were investigated.
two stages of the EDR. In addition UF filtration aimed at replacing the settler was studied as well.
Given these assumptions, we obtain the sizing and overall It is clear that possible silica deposition within the BWRO and the EDR
operating conditions for the EDR section as a function of RO recovery systems may pose a serious drawback upon increasing the BWRO
for a unit treating the concentrate from an original well water feed of recovery to more than 75%. However, cost analysis taking into account all
100 m3/h and overall process recovery of 98% (See Table 4-A). Note the components in the process clearly show that increasing the BWRO
that total chloride (and total anions) must be removed from the recovery ratio from 75 to 88% is not necessarily associated with a
highest RO recovery brine because the volume fraction of diluate significant reduction of the final product cost. Accordingly, it is to be
blended with RO permeate is the smallest. concluded that for keeping a smooth operation, the BWRO recovery ratio
When these options are cost out according to the cost assumptions should be limited when the EDR residence time of BWRO concentrate is
of Tables 1-A and 2-A and the design parameters of Table 4-A, we can not kept to a suitably short period of time. This will come at the price of
calculate the annualized costs for treating the RO brine by ED with an requiring a higher extent of salt removal in the EDR step.
attached crystallizer and UF separation unit (see Table 5-A). We can In this work part of the flow from the crystallizer/settler was fed to
see that there is a slight advantage to operating the EDR on the RO the UF crystallizer. In this sense, the latter was just partially
concentrate after 88% recovery in the RO step over the other cases. The challenged as a means of relieving EDR brine supersaturation and
88% recovery case is $40,000/year less expensive than the 75% RO keeping it free of crystallites that could otherwise precipitate within
recovery case. In addition to the smaller amount of anion that must be the EDR and the piping. However, results from this work show that it
removed at 88% recovery, the cost of acidifying the RO brine fed to the is worthwhile to go along with this part of the study and to further test
EDR stack is smaller because of the smaller volumes involved and the the UF crystallizer as an optional replacement for the settler.
overall lower amount of bicarbonate that must be neutralized to Finally, it is to be emphasized that even though the present study was
prevent calcium carbonate precipitation in the EDR stack. done on a specific brackish water source, its implications are general in
Table 2 presents the unit treatment costs for the RO/EDR hybrid the sense that it brings forward the various problems that have to be
process with 98% total RO recovery for a plant with a feed of 100 m3/h. encountered in achieving near ZLD with inland brackish installations.
By calculating unit costs for total product produced by the RO/EDR Moreover, this works provides some important quantitative methods
hybrid process we can see that the overall product water costs are for assessing problems, such as precipitation within the EDR stack once
clearly less than the base case (0.491 €/m3) for all BWRO recoveries. they occur. In addition, the cost calculations conducted in this work
These unit costs are also significantly less than the costs for seawater provide the sensitivity analysis of the final product cost to some
desalination in the most advanced plants presently in operation. In important system variables and can be apply to brackish water from
addition all the costs are significantly less than the present water tariff different locations provided that the necessary information is available.
for fresh water in Israel — 3.5 NIS/m3 (0.73 €/m3)[22]. Note that this
does not include the costs of transporting the water to the user. The Nomenclature
difference between the present water tariff and the product water A Membrane area for current flow in EDR [m2]
costs is the amount that can be allocated for transporting from the site ΔCD Concentration change in the EDR diluate compartments
of the high recovery desalination unit to the user. [eq/m3)
Cdsp Chloride concentration in brine sent for disposal (e.g. via
evaporation ponds or WAIV) [eq/m3]
5. Conclusions
Ctarget Target level of chloride ion concentration in final product
(set at 200 mg/L for the present calculations)
This work summarizes the long term studies made on BWRO ̅ Specific EDR power consumption [kW-h/m3]
E EDR
desalination of raw brackish water from the Negev Highlands, Israel
F Faraday number [coulombs/eq]
Itotal Total current [Ampere]
Table 2
Unit Treatment costs for RO/EDR hybrid with 98% total recovery for a 100 m3/h plant
l Geometric gap between each two membranes in the diluate
(feed flow rate). and brine compartments [m]
leff Effective gap between membranes [m]
RO step recovery RO Processing Costs 75% 83% 88% Unit
Ncp Number of cell pairs in EDR stack
Feed and pretreatment 124,484 124,484 124,484 € QD EDR diluate flow rate [m sec−1]
(at 0.16 €/m3 feed at 100 m3/h
Rstack Resistance of EDR stack [Ω]
for all cases)@
RO Power and capital 76,869 85,068 90,193 € R0stack Stack resistance at high concentrations.[Ω]
(0.13 €/m3 product) Relectrodes Resistance of electrode compartments [Ω]
RO permeate 591,300 654,372 693,792 m3/y RCM Resistance of cation exchange membranes [Ω]
Annual RO cost 201,353 209,553 214,677 €/yr RAM Resistance of anion exchange membranes [Ω]
Total EDR costs* 140,418 115,763 99,689 €/yr
RR Recycle rate (Diluate recycle pumping rate through stack/
Total RO/EDR Costs 319,999 308,441 298,857 €/yr
Brine disposal# 16,556 16,556 16,556 €/yr Diluate production rate)
Total Costs 336,555 324,998 315,413 €/yr Rcp Cell pair resistance (Ω)
Sp. RO costs 0.341 0.320 0.309 €/m3 ΔPst Pressure drop along EDR stack [bar]
(feed, power, capital)
Vtotal Total voltage applied to EDR [Volt]
Total product costs 0.436 0.421 0.408 €/m3
Base Case costs 0.491 0.491 0.491 €/m3 V Volume [m3]
Israel Water Tariff 0.730 0.730 0.730 €/m3 Vdsp Volume of brine sent for disposal (e.g. via evaporation
*) From Table 5-A.
ponds or WAIV) [m3]
#) Taken from Table 4 in [18]. UC Unit water costs [€/m3]
@) From Table 1-A. UP Value of the additional product water
 Y. Oren et al. / Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330 329

WCTOT Total water cost [€/m3] Table 3-A

Y Product water volume relative the feed volume Performance assumptions based on EDR piloting at BGU.

ED Section
Greek Performance assumptions Figures
γ ̅B Specific resistances of the brine compartments (logarithmic −
Δ [Cl ]/Δ [Total anions] (%) 66.7
average) [Ω cm] Diluate Resistance of cell pair (Ω-cm2) 0.188 × 103/(1.6 + [Cl−]lm)
γ ̅D Specific resistances of the diluate compartments (logarith- Balance of stack resistance per cell pair (Ω-cm2) 9.2
mic average) [Ω cm] Current efficiency (%) 81.0
Current density (A/m2 cell pair) ∼ 200
ξ Shielding factor
P drop in ED stack/pass (bar/pass at 25 L/min) 0.8
ηEDR Coulombic efficiency of EDR stack Recycle ratio of diluate (Qrecycle/Qdil) 1
ηpump Pump efficiency (pump energy / motor energy) Electrode voltage drop (Volts) 8
Δ Difference Recovery of Diluate (Qdil/QRO conc) (%) 92.5

Abbreviations
cp Cell pair Table 4-A
dsp disposal Sizing of EDR unit to treat RO brine to reach 98% overall recovery with blended product
target Target chloride concentration in EDR diluate of 200 mg/L of chloride (Full-scale ED with 0.5 m2 cells).

tot Total RO step recovery Item 75% 83% 88%

EDR Electrodialysis reversal Total anion removal rate = Qd × Δ 4079 3832 3658
TMP Trans membrane pressure (Total anion conc.) (eq/h)
RO/BWRO Reverse Osmosis / Brackish water Reverse Osmosis Qd, (m3/h) 25 17 12
VCF Volume concentration factor (Rd)cp ave, (Ω-cm2) 22.4 16.8 12.6
(Rst)cp ave, (Ω-cm2) 9.2 9.2 9.2
UF Ultrafiltration i, (A/m2) 193 181 202
WAIV Wind Aided Intensified eVaporation cell pairs/stack 350 350 300
ZLD Zero liquid discharge Vstack,( V) 221 173 140
stacks in series 4 4 4
Total cell pair area (m2) 756 756 648
I, (A) 96 91 101
Acknowledgments Power consumption (kW) 85.4 62.6 56.4
Power consumption per unit product volume 3.71 4.17 5.64
This research was conducted under the framework of a BMBF-MOS (kWh/m3)
project grant WT 0504, “Near-ZLD Strategy for Optimal Management of
Inland Brackish Water Desalination”. The authors are indebted to the Fella
and David Shapell and the Blaustein Foundations for supporting this work. Table 5-A
Total capital and operational expenditures for treatment of RO brine with ED/
Crystallizer/UF. Assumes 90% plant availability and 100 m3/h feed to RO section.

RO step recovery Item 75% 83% 88%

Appendix A. Cost assessments
Capital costs (in €)
EDR (total membrane area × 842)* 636,552 636,552 545,616
Crystallizer* 165,600 108,000 72,000
UF* 44,160 28,800 19,200
Table 1-A TOTAL CAPITAL COSTS 846,312 773,352 636,816
Specific capital costs assumed in calculating cost of desalinating brackish water with
EDR combination. Annual costs (in €/yr)
3 2
EDR + Cryst. + UF Annual capital cost# 67,705 61,868 50,945
Step €/m stream/d €/m Basis for costs
Annual stack power 48,460 35,532 32,043
Pretreatment 100 [19] Pump power costs 2481 1489 1191
RO * 321 192 [20] Acid costs 21,772 16,874 15,510
ED 842 Quotations for Asahi stacks Total EDR + Cryst. + UF Annual Costs 140,418 115,763 99,689
UF 40 [21]
*) Based on data from Table 1-A.
Crystallizer/ 150 Quoted costs of pilot unit, with scaleup
#) Based on 8% annual capital recovery factor.
settler exponent of 0.7

* assuming 25 L/m2-h average flux.

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 Update
Desalination
Volume 266, Issue 1–3, 31 January 2011, Page 291

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2010.09.019
 Desalination 266 (2011) 291

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Desalination
j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s ev i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d e s a l

Corrigendum

Corrigendum to “Pilot studies on high recovery BWRO-EDR

fornear zero liquid discharge approach”
[Desalination 261 (2010) 321–330]
Y. Oren ⁎
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Zuckerberg Institute for Water Research Department for Desalination and Water Treatment P.O. Box 653, 84105 Beer-Sheva, Israel

In this article Fig. 7 and its legend should be replaced by the following:

120
NaCl in tap water
Cell-pair resistance (ohm x cm2)

100 Exp. 4 (0.45m2)

Exp. 35 (5m2)
Exp. 62 (5m2)
80 Exp. 79 (5m2)

60

40

20

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
EDR diluate conductivity (mS x cm-1)

Fig. 7. Electrical resistance per cell pair vs EDR diluate conductivity with RO brine and NaCl solution (5289 ppm Cl− in tap water) as feeds.

Accordingly, the discussion in page 325 related to this figure should be replaced by the following one:
“The change of cell pair resistance of the EDR stack with diluate compartment conductivity for the different experiments is shown in Fig. 7.
As expected, the resistance of each cell pair and, consequently, of the whole stack decreases as the diluate conductivity increases.”

DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.desal.2010.06.010.

⁎ Tel.: +972 52 5793088.
E-mail address: yoramo@bgu.ac.il.

0011-9164/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.desal.2010.09.019