Effect of Feed Water Temperature on Reverse Osmosis Performance in a Borehole Water Desalination Plant: Numerical and Experimental Validation

Abstract

Reverse osmosis is a water desalination process with the help of a semi-permeable membrane to deal with the global scenario of water scarcity. The study was performed by installing Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant coupled with photovoltaic (PV) panels in the LPHE-modelling and simulations laboratory at the Faculty of Sciences, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco. The principal purpose of the study was to investigate water quality and its proposed treatment by taking water samples from Ain El Atti, Errachidia, Morocco. Water quality testing confirmed the high value of Total Dissolved Salts (TDS), which made water saline. The current article will provide mathematical modelling of the RO process based on the theory of diffusion and mass transfer of solution. The results of the mathematical simulation model were validated with the help of a series of experiments done in the pilot laboratory. The study also focused on finding the impact of feed water temperature on the thermodynamic parameter of water (i.e., TDS, flow rate (Q), Specific Energy Consumption (SEC), recovery rate (Y), and retention rate (TR)). Finally, a comparison of results of both models and per cent error in results were calculated, which depicted a higher validity of the mathematical model by showing closer proximity of more than 85% of its results with the actual experimental setup.