A Cost-Effective Wind Power-Driven RO Plant for Treatment of Brackish Water

Abstract

Desalination has often been perceived as a high cost means of producing water. Reason being that some of the water treatment methods use electricity to run a pump as in Reverse Osmosis system and some uses thermal energy to produce steam as in Multi Effect Distillation. High cost and less availability of conventional fuels has attracted the focus of researchers to explore other unconventional means and methods to purify water. This paper explores the possibility of using wind power for water treatment. In costal countries, tremendous wind power is available at the coastline which may be used to drive a RO plant. In India particularly, the average wind speed calculated along the coastlines of Gujarat state gives a fair idea about potential of energy that can be generated. This energy can be harnessed to run a rotating pump, or a piston-cylinder arrangement coupled with RO module to provide the necessary pressure required to push saline water through the membrane. Along the western coast of India there is an abundance of wind energy to capitulate high amount of energy in terms of electrical Power. If the rotor diameter is 4 feet (1.3 m) and located at a height of 8 feet (2.5 m), each wind turbine may produce power of around 2 KW. This power may be used to run the reciprocating pump which provides pressure to the RO Apparatus. The paper describes recent advancements in the wind industries technology to produce electrical energy at low cost but it concentrates more on coupling wind energy directly with RO module to save energy conversion cost which is a seldom or different approach than converting electrical energy to mechanical energy for running of RO system.