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Desalination
Volume 132, Issues 1–3, 20 December 2000, Pages 21-27

Flux enhancement of RO desalination processes ☆

Abderrahim Abbas , Nader Al-Bastaki

Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Bahrain, PO Box 32038, Bahrain Tel. +973 782-
122; Fax +973 684-844

Received 5 July 2000, Accepted 20 July 2000, Available online 16 March 2001.

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https://doi.org/10.1016/S0011-9164(00)00131-4
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Abstract

The simple model proposed by Kennedy et al. was modified so as to improve its ability to predict the periodic
performance operation of RO systems. The modified model was validated using data from the literature as well as data
obtained from experiments in this work. The predicted permeate rates compared well with the experimental values for
the considered forcing functions: sine and asymmetric square waves. Periodic and steady-state experimental runs were
performed on a spiral-wound RO membrane system at three average pressures: 20, 25 and 30 bars. For the case of
periodic operation, the operating pressure was varied according to an asymmetric square wave having a period of 5
min. The duration of each run was 30 min. The effect of the time split, γ, of the forcing wave on the permeation rate as
well the salt rejection was investigated. The results showed that periodic operation leads to improvements in the
permeation rate. For the tested pressures, the overall maximum water production rates occurred at a time split
approximately equal to 0.65. It was also found that cyclic operation may lead to small reductions in the salt passage.

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Cited by (12)

Performance of reverse osmosis membrane with large feed pressure fluctuations from a wave-driven
desalination system
2022, Desalination

Citation Excerpt :
…Kennedy et al. [25] tested a variety of conditions and saw a maximum increase of 70% in permeate flow. Abbas and Al-Bastaki
modified, validated, and improved the model proposed in Kennedy et al. and demonstrated improved permeate flow and salt
rejection facilitated by pulsed RO in the form of square and asymmetrical waveform pressure pulses [20,23,24,26]; these results were
attributed to the reduction in the effect of concentration polarization [27]. However, in these studies, the focus was on model
validation and process optimization, without regard for the impact on membrane integrity over longer periods of operation.…

Hide abstract

Wave-driven desalination systems are proposed water treatment systems that involve reverse osmosis of seawater
powered directly by wave motion. Such a configuration would result in drastic feed pressure fluctuations. For a
technology conventionally operated with a constant feed condition, the effect of these variable pressures on membrane
integrity and performance is unknown. Experiments were conducted with spiral wound membranes coupled to a
system capable of producing feed pressure fluctuations of more than 400 psi. Feed composition included 5, 20, and
35 g/L NaCl, and a synthetic seawater at normal and 1.5× concentration. The variable feed conditions included sine-like
pressure waves swings of 200–500 and 500–900 psi with frequencies of 1.25, 7.5, and 12 waves/min, and a model-
generated random waveform. Between each wave experiment we performed membrane integrity tests at 650 psi and
25 g/L NaCl feed, which showed a 7.4% drop in the membrane's water permeability coefficient, an 18.4% flux decline,
and more than 99% salt rejection over 1770 h of cumulative experimental time. Analysis of permeate samples showed
high salt rejection. In general, variable feed pressure had no significant deleterious effect on membrane integrity or
performance.

Autonomous Solar-Powered Desalination Systems for Remote Communities

2017, Desalination Sustainability: A Technical, Socioeconomic, and Environmental Approach

Hide abstract

Remote areas face particular infrastructure challenges relating to the provision of clean drinking water and electricity.
The installation of classical centralized water and electricity systems in such areas is economically unfavorable because
of low population densities. This situation provides unique opportunities for the implementation of autonomous,
small-scale, decentralized systems. Although water is often available, often it is not potable due to the presence of
dissolved contaminants, including salts and other organic and inorganic contaminants. Desalination of such waters can

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0011916400001314 2/5
4/6/24, 5:07 PM Flux enhancement of RO desalination processes - ScienceDirect

be achieved by using small-scale renewable energy-powered membrane (RE-membrane) filtration systems to

overcome the lack of infrastructures in remote areas. This chapter presents an assessment of the availability and
sustainability of RE-membrane systems (focused on reverse osmosis, membrane distillation, and electrodialysis) for
remote communities, detailing financial and technical viewpoints, as well as state-of-the-art options for such systems.
A special focus is given to water and energy efficiency, socioeconomic integration, and environmental aspects such as
concentrate management.

Sustainable Energy Systems for Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination

2016, Emerging Membrane Technology for Sustainable Water Treatment

Hide abstract

Desalination of seawater driven by solar and other sustainable energy sources could in principle fulfil the growing
needs of the world’s most water-stressed countries. Reverse osmosis (RO) has become the most efficient process for
desalination, making it the technology of choice for use with solar energy, and photovoltaics (PV) has become the most
successful technology for solar energy conversion. But despite recent gains in the efficiency of PV-RO, substantial
improvements are still possible because of the numerous energy losses occurring between input of sunlight and output
of freshwater. This chapter gives an overview of some of the research activities and recent advances that could
ultimately result in solar-powered RO systems becoming more than 10 times efficient than today. It also describes
advances in waste heat recovery for RO desalination that are yielding greatly improved performance over desalination
processes based on distillation.

Renewable energy powered membrane technology: Impact of solar irradiance fluctuations on

performance of a brackish water reverse osmosis system
2015, Separation and Purification Technology

Citation Excerpt :
…Park et al. determined that supercapacitors could offer up to 4 min of energy buffering for a RE-membrane system [39] and,
subsequently, Richards et al. [40] demonstrated that supercapacitors can increase the daily permeate production by up to 40%. From
the point of view of membrane science, unsteady flows were often described as a method to decrease concentration polarisation (CP)
and fouling in pressure driven membranes, thus enhancing the system performance [41–45]. Rodgers and Sparks [42] stated that CP
layer resistance was minimal during its initial development, but increased rapidly to its steady-state value, with TMP pulsing used to
take advantage of the transient development of the CP resistance.…

Hide abstract

Fluctuations in solar irradiance were varied in frequency and magnitude to investigate the performance of a directly-
connected solar energy powered reverse osmosis (RO) membrane system. Typically, the system produced acceptable
quality water with constant solar irradiances ranging from 400 to 1200 W m−2. Low average motor powers were
encountered during fluctuations, however, in many cases, good performance was still realised, even at solar irradiance
values that were equivalent to <400 W m−2. This counter-intuitive result arises from the effect of averaging the motor
power, with periods of high solar irradiance compensating for the under-performance at times when the system was
off. Overall, even though the permeate flux was often low when operating under fluctuating conditions, the RO system
continued to deliver satisfactory quality water and at a low specific energy consumption (SEC). Temporal studies
revealed that a disruption of the concentration polarisation layer occurs via a naturally induced backwash for steps in
the solar irradiance as low as 100 W m−2. This suggests that a renewable energy powered RO filtration system could
benefit from being operated from a fluctuating energy source. Furthermore, the operating conditions during the first
couple of minutes after a system shutdown event is shown to be very important, with: (i) shorter off-periods resulting
in good performance being achieved quicker, and (ii) short-term power availability dramatically improving system
performance. These findings indicate that a renewable energy powered RO system can operate well from a fluctuating

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0011916400001314 3/5
4/6/24, 5:07 PM Flux enhancement of RO desalination processes - ScienceDirect

energy source, in particular when additional power – for example, via supercapacitor energy buffering – is available to
boost the system after a shut-down period.

Unsteady-state shear strategies to enhance mass-transfer for the implementation of ultrapermeable

membranes in reverse osmosis: A review
2015, Desalination

Citation Excerpt :
…The significantly reduced effect relative to Llias and Govind [205] indicates the importance of the choice of waveforms and
frequency. Furthermore, the same authors showed that operating a SWRO membrane system under periodic pulsation (again a period
of 5 min) around an average of 25 bar increased the permeate flux (by < 10%) and reduced the salt passage marginally, but increased
the energy consumption; they also noted that increasing the frequency of the pulsation increased the permeate flux by 60–80% at the
maximum frequency of 1 Hz [207]. In addition, the performance of a tubular RO module for water desalination using periodically
forced feed parameters under simultaneous forcing of the feed pressure was investigated by Ali et al. [194], who found a 42% increase
in the permeate flow rate and a 20% reduction in the salt concentration in the permeate.…

Hide abstract

Advances in material science promise the development of a new generation of ultrapermeable membranes (UPMs) for
reverse osmosis (RO) desalination and water reclamation, which will lead to reduced footprint and lower capital costs.
However, due to the attendant increased concentration-polarization (CP) and membrane fouling effects, the higher
fluxes are not possible unless the boundary-layer mass-transfer is enhanced to match the flux increase. In a
conventional module, a two-fold increase in flux via UPM would require a four-fold increase in crossflow, generating a
12-fold increase in channel pressure drop. To overcome this, the application of unsteady-state shear to the membrane
surface has the potential to be more energy-efficient than a steady-state high shear approach. Hence, this paper
reviews a range of unsteady-state shear strategies, including gas sparging, vibrations, particle fluidization, and flow
pulsations. Analysis shows that unsteady-state shear could allow for an enhancement of two- to five-fold at an
incremental power cost of about 10% compared to the conventional RO desalination process. Some of the practical
constraints to implementation are discussed and the promising options identified for further development. Novel
modules and modes of operation could provide a challenge for material science and membrane preparation.

Periodic control of a reverse osmosis desalination process

2012, Journal of Process Control

Citation Excerpt :
…Periodic forcing improves the mixing of the solution on the feed side and, hence, reduces the build-up of solute ions near the
membrane wall. The analysis of periodically forced reverse osmosis has received considerable attention in the literature [2,5–10]. One
of the first works in this area was carried out by Kennedy et al. [11] who varied harmonically the flow rate of sucrose solution in an
RO unit.…

Hide abstract

This paper addresses the forced periodic operation of a tubular reverse osmosis process for improved performance. The
investigation is carried out through simulation of a previously validated model for the RO process. The feed pressure
and feed flow rate are transformed into periodic behavior in the form of sinusoidal functions. A nonlinear model
predictive control algorithm is utilized to regulate the amplitude and period of the sinusoidal functions that formulate
the input signal. The control system managed to generate the cyclic inputs necessary to enhance the closed-loop
performance in terms of higher permeate production and lower salt concentration. The proposed control algorithm can
attain its objective with and without defining a set point for the controlled outputs. In the latter case, the process is

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0011916400001314 4/5
4/6/24, 5:07 PM Flux enhancement of RO desalination processes - ScienceDirect

driven to the best achievable performance. Similar successful results in terms of improved production and quality of
water were also obtained in the presence of modeling errors and external disturbances.

View all citing articles on Scopus

☆ Presented at the Conference on Membranes in Drinking and Industrial Water Production, Paris, France, 3–6 October 2000 International
Water Association, European Desalination Society, American Water Works Association, Japan Water Works Association

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Copyright © 2000 Published by Elsevier B.V.

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