An explicit solution of the mathematical model for osmotic desalination process

Abstract

Membrane processes such as reverse osmosis and forward osmosis for seawater desalination have gained attention in recent years. Mathematical models have been used to interpret the mechanism of membrane processes. The membrane process model, consisting of flux and concentration polarization (CP) models, is coupled with balance equations and solved simultaneously. This set of model equations is, however, implicit and nonlinear; consequently, the model must be solved iteratively and numerically, which is time- and cost-intensive. We suggest a method to transform implicit equations to their explicit form, in order to avoid an iterative procedure. In addition, the performance of five solving methods, including the method that we suggest, is tested and compared for accuracy, computation time, and robustness based on input conditions. Our proposed method shows the best performance based on the robustness of various simulation conditions, accuracy, and a cost-effective computation time.