A conceptual design of low fouling and high recovery FO–MSF desalination plant

Abstract Forward Osmosis (FO) has many applications in water and wastewater treatment and seawater desalination. In this paper, the FO was suggested for seawater pretreatment to the thermal desalination processes such as Multi Stage Flashing (MSF). The integrated FO–MSF hybrid system was designed to reduce the cost of desalination in which the brine reject from MSF was recycled and reused as a draw solution in the FO process. A simple model was suggested here to estimate water flux and power consumption in the FO process and compared with Nanofiltration (NF) process which was previously used in seawater softening. The simulation results showed that for feed salinities between 32,000 mg/L and 50,000 mg/L the recovery rate in the NF was higher than that in the FO. It is also found that the water permeability and specific power consumption was higher in the NF than that in the FO. However, power consumption in the FO wasn't affected by the feed salinity while it increased with feed salinity in NF. Therefore, the FO process has the potential to replace the NF seawater pretreatment for thermal desalination.

[1]  Ata M. Hassan,et al.  A new approach to membrane and thermal seawater desalination processes using nanofiltration membranes (Part 1) , 1998 .

[2]  A. Altaee,et al.  Alternative design to dual stage NF seawater desalination using high rejection brackish water membranes , 2011 .

[3]  F. Trieb,et al.  Concentrating solar power for seawater desalination in the Middle East and North Africa , 2008 .

[4]  Noura S. Al-Deffeeri.  Heat transfer measurement as a criterion for performance evaluation of scale inhibition in MSF plants in Kuwait , 2007 .

[5]  Linda Zou,et al.  Recent developments in forward osmosis : opportunities and challenges. , 2012 .

[6]  Seeram Ramakrishna,et al.  Nanofibrous filtering media: Filtration problems and solutions from tiny materials , 2007 .

[7]  Ata M. Hassan.  REVIEW OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE NEW NF- SEAWATER DESALINATION PROCESS FROM PILOT PLANT TO COMMERCIAL PRODUCTION PLANT STAGES 1 , 2002 .

[8]  Tai-Shung Chung,et al.  Forward osmosis processes: Yesterday, today and tomorrow , 2012 .

[9]  Lourdes García-Rodríguez,et al.  Experimental analysis of a multi-effect distillation unit operated out of nominal conditions , 2012 .

[10]  Hoseyn Sayyaadi,et al.  Thermoeconomic optimization of multi effect distillation desalination systems , 2010 .

[11]  Ali Altaee.  Forward Osmosis: Potential use in Desalination and Water Reuse , 2012 .

[12]  A. A. Mabrouk,et al.  A novel Forward osmosis membrane pretreatment of seawater for thermal desalination processes , 2013 .

[13]  J. McCutcheon,et al.  Influence of concentrative and dilutive internal concentration polarization on flux behavior in forward osmosis , 2006 .

[14]  A. S. Nafey,et al.  Exergy and thermo-economic analyses of a combined solar organic cycle with multi effect distillation (MED) desalination process , 2011 .

[15]  J. McCutcheon,et al.  Internal concentration polarization in forward osmosis: role of membrane orientation , 2006 .

[16]  Jacques Andrianne,et al.  Thermal and membrane processe economics: optimized selection for seawater desalination , 2003 .

[17]  A. Al-Rawajfeh.  Modeling of alkaline scale formation in falling film horizontal-tube multiple-effect distillers , 2007 .

[18]  S. Loeb.  Energy production at the Dead Sea by pressure-retarded osmosis: challenge or chimera? , 1998 .

[19]  A. A. Mabrouk,et al.  Technoeconomic analysis of once through long tube MSF process for high capacity desalination plants , 2013 .

[20]  Minkyu Park,et al.  Modeling of colloidal fouling in forward osmosis membrane: Effects of reverse draw solution permeation , 2013 .