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    Boron Removal from Seawater by Thin-Film Composite Reverse Osmosis Membranes

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    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Yasmeen_Al_Sunbul_Thesis.docx Final.pdf
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    3.087Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Description:
    Yasmeen Al Sunbul - Final Thesis Paper
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    Type
    Thesis
    Authors
    Al Sunbul, Yasmeen cc
    Advisors
    Pinnau, Ingo cc
    Committee members
    Peinemann, Klaus-Viktor cc
    Han, Yu cc
    Program
    Chemical and Biological Engineering
    KAUST Department
    Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
    Date
    2018-04
    Permanent link to this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/10754/627887
    
    Metadata
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    Abstract
    Reverse Osmosis membranes have been successfully proven to remove almost 99% of chemicals dissolved in seawater. However, removal of certain trace elements, such as boron is challenging and relatively low for seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants compared to thermal desalination plants. Boron is naturally occurring and is present in seawater at an average concentration of 4.5-5 mg/L. While boron is a vital element, its toxicity has been proven on crops, animals and possibly humans. Additionally, boron should be removed to comply with the current guideline value of 0.5 mg/L, for drinking water, issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is barely attained by a single-pass process seawater reverse osmosis plant. Currently, multipass reverse osmosis membrane operations with pH modifications are the only valid method for boron removal. However, this is not economically efficient as it requires higher energy and chemicals consumptions. The objective of this study was to investigate boron removal by commercial TFC RO membranes in addition to custom-made KAUST-synthesized TFC membrane. Five membrane samples were examined: Toray, Sepro, Koch, and KAUST in-house synthesized membrane. Three different feed pH conditions were used: pH6, pH8, and pH10. Filtration experiments were conducted in two parts. In experiment 1, all five membranes were examined for boron rejection in a dead-end permeation system, whereas in experiment 2 the two membranes with the highest boron rejection from experiment 1 were tested in a cross-flow system. Permeate and feed samples were taken continuously and analyzed for boron concentration, rejection calculation. Membrane surfaces were characterized according to hydrophilicity, roughness and surface charge. The results showed for all the tested membranes that boron rejection increased as the feed pH increased. KAUST, defect-free TFC, showed the highest performance for boron rejection for all pH conditions, although, it shows the roughest surface. Toray membranes 80LB and 80B exhibited the second highest boron rejection and had the most negatively charged membrane surfaces. It was observed in this study that the rejection of boron by a membrane is due to size exclusion and charge repulsion mechanisms. It was concluded that, the KAUST, defect free TFC has the potential to be applicable for boron rejection in industrial application as it has better boron rejection than commercially available RO membranes.
    Citation
    Al Sunbul, Y. (2018). Boron Removal from Seawater by Thin-Film Composite Reverse Osmosis Membranes. KAUST Research Repository. https://doi.org/10.25781/KAUST-P50TT
    DOI
    10.25781/KAUST-P50TT
    ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
    10.25781/KAUST-P50TT
    Scopus Count
    Collections
    Theses; Theses; Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division; Chemical Engineering Program

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