Reverse osmosis process flow diagram

Figure 8.21 Sample reverse osmosis and pretreatment process flow diagram.

An example of reverse osmosis seawater desalination for industrial purposes is the system installed in a thermoelectric power plant in Venezuela in 1980.17 The original segment of the plant is designed to produce 800,000 GPD of boiler feedwater and potable water. A process flow diagram for this system is shown in Figure 4.18. 

Figure 8.21 Sample reverse osmosis and pretreatment process flow diagram. Not all systems will include aU unit operations. Adapted from Anne Aeza, Nalco, an Ecolab Company...

Desalination of seawater is one of the important applications of membrane processes. There are various ways to produce fresh water such as distillation, electrodialysis, membrane distillation, freezing, membrane bioreactor, and reverse osmosis. Among them, distillation is the most used technique, but RO is becoming more popular in the desalination industry. A flow diagram of a single-stage RO system is shown in Fig. 4. 

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