Determinants of a Pre-Treatment Model in Achieving Economic and Environmental Sustainability in Membrane Desalination

Man Djun Lee,Prashobh Karunakaran,Sebastian Dayou

doi:10.17576/jkukm-2018-30(2)-09

Abstract

Feedwater pre-treatment plays a significant role in the production performance of water desalination operations. This study aims to formulate a pre-treatment model to evaluate the determinants in achieving economic and environmental sustainability. The research is oriented toward the goal of productivity and performance improvement in the water desalination process. The main objective of this study was to better understand the relationship between feedwater pre-treatment and demineralised water production. The secondary objective was to investigate the effect of an ultrafiltration membrane (UFM) on feedwater production performance. Case studies and literature review are included in this paper. Factors that potentially hinder the efficiency and reduce the load capacity of the desalination process include sand, high levels of ionic bond, biomass and colloid materials. These fouling factors could be eliminated efficiently from the feedwater during pre-treatment. Results demonstrated that the contribution of all inputs to achieve targeted pre-treated water quality (SDI < 3) was significant (p < 0.05) except for activated carbon. Investigations of the pre-treatment process have shown that the silt density index (SDI) is reduced by 45% using a UFM. Higher performance in water desalination was achieved through a higher efficiency in the removal of bacteria, sand, biomass and natural organic materials. Economic analysis showed that overall capacity utilization and operating performance had increased by 11%. This study concludes that quality pre-treatment is essential for achieving higher performance in membrane desalination operations.

Highlights

IntroductionDesalination technology has developed extensively during the last 50 years to produce freshwater from saline water
Desalination technology has developed extensively during the last 50 years to produce freshwater from saline water.At its initial stage, the fresh water production process was thermally-based and not feasible economically or environmentally
Findings indicated that operating parameters of pretreatment with a ultrafiltration membrane (UFM) were higher compared to operations without a UFM. These findings demonstrated that performance of pre-treatment is significantly improved with the use of a UFM in removing particulate and colloid materials from feedwater

Summary

Introduction

Desalination technology has developed extensively during the last 50 years to produce freshwater from saline water. The fresh water production process was thermally-based and not feasible economically or environmentally. Membrane technology has received more interest than thermal desalination due to its lower cost, higher. 10/10/2018 11:21:46 efficiency and lessened negative environmental impact (Brunetti et al 2015). In terms of energy consumption, membrane technology is a cheaper and “greener” option than thermal desalination even though membrane technology is a pressure-intensive water production process. The productivity and performance of membrane technology depend on the pre-treatment quality of feedwater. The known factors for membrane fouling are sand, a higher degree of ionic bond, biomass including algae, pollutants and colloid material concentrations in the intake water (Anjum et al 2016)

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion