Application of pressure assisted forward osmosis for water purification and reuse of reverse osmosis concentrate from a water reclamation plant
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) DivisionWater Desalination and Reuse Research Center (WDRC)
Date
2016-07-26Online Publication Date
2016-07-26Print Publication Date
2016-10Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/621477
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The use of forward osmosis (FO) is growing among the researchers for water desalination and wastewater treatment due to use of natural osmotic pressure of draw solute. In this study pressure assisted forward osmosis (PAFO) was used instead of FO to increase the water production rate. In this study a low concentration of draw solution (0.25 M KCl) was applied so that diluted KCl after PAFO operation can directly be used for fertigation. The performance of PAFO was investigated for the treatment of reverse osmosis concentrate (ROC) from a water reclamation plant. The water production in PAFO was increased by 9% and 29% at applied pressure of 2 and 4 bars, respectively, to feed side based on 90 h of experiments. Granular activated carbon (GAC) pretreatment and HCl softening were used to reduce organic fouling and scaling prior to application of PAFO. It reduced total organic carbon (TOC) and total inorganic carbon (TIC) by around 90% and 85%, respectively from untreated ROC. Subsequently, this led to an increase in permeate flux. In addition, GAC pretreatment adsorbed 12 out of 14 organic micropollutants tested from ROC to below detection limit. This application enabled to minimise the ROC volume with a sustainable operation and produced high quality and safe water for discharge or reuse. The draw solution (0.25 M KCl) used in this study was diluted to 0.14 M KCl, which is a suitable concentration (10 kg/m3) for fertigation, due to water transport from feed solution. © 2016 Elsevier B.V.Citation
Jamil S, Jeong S, Vigneswaran S (2016) Application of pressure assisted forward osmosis for water purification and reuse of reverse osmosis concentrate from a water reclamation plant. Separation and Purification Technology 171: 182–190. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.seppur.2016.07.036.Sponsors
This study was funded by CRC Care Grant (Sustainable process for treatment of WWROC to achieve near zero liquid discharge). The first author was funded by Australian Postgraduate Award and UTS Research Excellence Scholarship. We acknowledge the support of Dr. Andrzej Lisowski, Sydney Olympic Park Authority for providing reverse osmosis concentrate from the water reclamation plant.Publisher
Elsevier BVae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1016/j.seppur.2016.07.036