Reverse osmosis concentrated salt solution

The cell membranes in cucumber cells are semipermeable, meaning water molecules pass back and forth through the membranes but solute molecules do not. A cucumber left in a concentrated salt solution shrivels up because water molecules leave the cells and enter the salt solution. Is this an example of osmosis or reverse osmosis ... 

A further application of electrodialysis is the concentration of reverse osmosis brines. Because of limiting membrane selectivity and the osmotic pressure of concentrated salt solutions, the concentration of brine in reverse osmosis desalination plants can not exceed... 

Experimental measurements of RED and PRO system performance are limited. However, a recent techno-economic analysis [143] suggests where the processes possess the greatest potential. RED is most attractive when using seawater as the concentrated salt solution while PRO is most attractive for more concentrated brines. An intriguing application is the use of PRO to recover energy from the concentrated brines produced by reverse osmosis desalination. 

Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is a process derived from reverse osmosis. This process enables to generate energy from a concentration difference (14], The principle is shown in figure VI - 11. If a semipeimeable membrane separates a concentrated salt solution from water or a dilute solution then osmosis occurs and water flows from the dilute solution (or pure water) to the concentrated solution. Only when a pressure is applied higher than the osmotic pressure water flows from the concentrated solution to the diluted solution. The osmotic water flow can be used to generate electricity by means of a turbine. 

A reverse osmosis membrane acts as the semipermeable barrier to flow ia the RO process, aHowiag selective passage of a particular species, usually water, while partially or completely retaining other species, ie, solutes such as salts. Chemical potential gradients across the membrane provide the driving forces for solute and solvent transport across the membrane. The solute chemical potential gradient, —is usually expressed ia terms of concentration the water (solvent) chemical potential gradient, —Afi, is usually expressed ia terms of pressure difference across the membrane. 

Concentration of Seawater by ED. In terms of membrane area, concentration of seawater is the second largest use. Warm seawater is concentrated by ED to 18 to 20% dissolved soHds using membranes with monovalent-ion-selective skins. The EDR process is not used. The osmotic pressure difference between about 19% NaCl solution and partially depleted seawater is about 20,000 kPa (200 atm) at 25°C, which is well beyond the range of reverse osmosis. Salt is produced from the brine by evaporation and crystallisa tion at seven plants in Japan and one each in South Korea, Taiwan, and Kuwait. A second plant is soon to be built in South Korea. None of the plants are justified on economic grounds compared to imported solar or mined salt. 

Albany International Research Co. has developed an advanced hollow fiber composite reverse osmosis membrane and module under the name of Quantro II . This composite membrane is comprised of a porous hollow fiber substrate on which has been deposited a rejection barrier capable of fluxes of commercial importance at high rejection of dissolved salts at elevated temperatures. Resistance to active chlorine has been demonstrated. Proprietary processes have been developed for spinning of the fiber, establishment of the rejection barrier and processing of the fiber to prepare modules of commercial size. Prototype modules are currently in field trials against brackish and seawater feed solutions. Applications under consideration for this membrane include brackish and seawater desalination as well as selected industrial concentration processes. 

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a separation technology that uses selective semipermeable membranes to remove dissolved solids, such as metal salts, from water. In the RO process, the solution containing the contaminant(s) is applied under pressure to one side of a membrane. The water passes through the membrane, leaving behind a solution with a smaller volume and a higher concentration of solutes. 

Point-of-Source Recovery - in certain circumstances, it is possible to utilize reverse osmosis to effect a "zero discharge" electroplating rinse water recovery system. The rinse water from the first rinse is pumped to a reverse osmosis system that concentrates the salts and directs them back to the plating bath. The purified rinse water (permeate) is directed to the last rinse, and neither solute nor solvent is lost. in the united States there are approximately 150 reverse osmosis systems operating in this manner on nickel baths and 12 on acid copper. There are also a few installations operating on copper cyanide, hexavalant chrome, and acid zinc. 

P18.5 Sea water contains approximately 26,000 parts per million of dissolved NaCl, plus smaller amounts of other solutes, principally in the form of salts containing Mg2+, K+, Cl", Br, SO4-, and CO2-. In a water purification procedure, a reverse-osmosis process is used, in which half of the water is removed as pure water, leaving a concentrate that has twice the concentration of NaCl. Calculate the minimum work required to obtain a metric ton (103 kg) of pure water. Ignoring the impurities, the process is... 

Reverse osmosis and normal osmosis (dialysis) are directly related processes. In simple terms, if a selective membrane (i.e., a membrane freely permeable to water, but much less permeable to salt) separates a salt solution from pure water, water will pass through the membrane from the pure water side of the membrane into the side less concentrated in water (salt side) as shown in Figure 2.8. This process is called normal osmosis. If a hydrostatic pressure is applied to the salt side of the membrane, the flow of water can be retarded and, when the applied pressure is sufficient, the flow ceases. The hydrostatic pressure required to stop... 

In any process, if one component is enriched at the membrane surface, then mass balance dictates that a second component is depleted at the surface. By convention, concentration polarization effects are described by considering the concentration gradient of the minor component. In Figure 4.3(a), concentration polarization in reverse osmosis is represented by the concentration gradient of salt, the minor component rejected by the membrane. In Figure 4.3(b), which illustrates dehydration of aqueous ethanol solutions by pervaporation, concentration polarization is represented by the concentration gradient of water, the minor component that preferentially permeates the membrane. 

Figure 4.3 Concentration gradients formed as a result of permeation through a selective membrane. By convention, concentration polarization is usually represented by the gradient of the minor component—salt in the reverse osmosis example and water in the pervaporation example (dehydration of an ethanol solution)...

In the case of desalination of water by reverse osmosis illustrated in Figure 4.3(a), the salt concentration cio adjacent to the membrane surface is higher than the bulk solution concentration c, because reverse osmosis membranes preferentially permeate water and retain salt. Water and salt are brought toward the membrane surface by the flow of solution through the membrane J,.1 Water and a little salt permeate the membrane, but most of the salt is rejected by the membrane and retained at the membrane surface. Salt accumulates at the membrane surface until a sufficient gradient has formed to allow the salt to diffuse to the bulk solution. Steady state is then reached. 

Figure 4.4 Salt concentration gradients adjacent to a reverse osmosis desalination membrane. The mass balance equation for solute flux across the boundary layer is the basis of the film model description of concentration polarization...

The final parameter in Equation (4.9) that determines the value of the concentration polarization modulus is the diffusion coefficient A of the solute away from the membrane surface. The size of the solute diffusion coefficient explains why concentration polarization is a greater factor in ultrafiltration than in reverse osmosis. Ultrafiltration membrane fluxes are usually higher than reverse osmosis fluxes, but the difference between the values of the diffusion coefficients of the retained solutes is more important. In reverse osmosis the solutes are dissolved salts, whereas in ultrafiltration the solutes are colloids and macromolecules. The diffusion coefficients of these high-molecular-weight components are about 100 times smaller than those of salts. 

Salt and water permeate reverse osmosis membranes according to the solution-diffusion transport mechanism are described in Chapter 2. The water flux,. /, is linked to the pressure and concentration gradients across the membrane by the equation... 

Many nanofiltration membranes follow these rules, but oftentimes the behavior is more complex. Nanofiltration membranes frequently combine both size and Donnan exclusion effects to minimize the rejection of all salts and solutes. These so-called low-pressure reverse osmosis membranes have very high rejections and high permeances of salt at low salt concentrations, but lose their selectivity at salt concentrations above 1000 or 2000 ppm salt in the feed water. The membranes are therefore used to remove low levels of salt from already relatively clean water. The membranes are usually operated at very low pressures of 50-200 psig. 

The relationship between brine solution concentration factor and water recovery rate is shown in Figure 5.20. With plants that operate below a concentration factor of 2, that is, 50 % recovery rate, scaling is not normally a problem. However, many brackish water reverse osmosis plants operate at recovery rates of 80 or 90 %. Salt concentrations on the brine side of the membrane may then be far above the solubility limit. In order of importance, the salts that most commonly form scale are ... 

Membrane distillation offers a number of advantages over alternative pressure-driven processes such as reverse osmosis. Because the process is driven by temperature gradients, low-grade waste heat can be used and expensive high-pressure pumps are not required. Membrane fluxes are comparable to reverse osmosis fluxes, so membrane areas are not excessive. Finally, the process is still effective with slightly reduced fluxes even for very concentrated solutions. This is an advantage over reverse osmosis, in which the feed solution osmotic pressure places a practical limit on the concentration of a salt in the feed solution to be processed. 

In electrodialysis, an applied electric field rather than a concentration gradient is used to draw ions across the membrane. Because it is faster than ordinary dialysis, electrodialysis is often used in biochemical analyses for purposes of fractionation, concentration, and desalting. Reverse osmosis (RO) is a process that uses semipermeable membranes to allow water permeation however, the membranes act as a barrier to the passage of dissolved and suspended particles. Typically, RO membranes are used to extract pure water from aqueous solutions of dissolved salts, such as seawater. The particle size cutoff is typically 0.0001 yum with driving pressures of 200 to 800 psi (1.4 to 5.5 MPa).61... 

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