Integrated Forward Osmosis/Membrane Distillation Process Technology for Industrial Water Treatment and Reuse

Abstract

Energy and water are mutually dependent, limited resources that are critical to the development and economic stability of the United States. Energy production requires large volumes of water, and water treatment and distribution requires large amounts of energy. In 2010, water and wastewater treatment accounted for roughly 1.8% of total electricity use in the United States, which corresponded to 69 TWh per year or, in terms of power-generating capacity, over 7.8 GW. Population growth and climate change will result in increased demand on these limited resources, making them not sustainable at present use levels. In recent years, both forward osmosis (FO) and membrane distillation (MD) have garnered significant attention as next-generation water desalination and reuse technologies with the potential to significantly reduce the energy cost associated with wastewater treatment. Critical technical hurdles and lack of operational understanding, however, have limited development of these individual technologies beyond the laboratory scale. In FO, a draw solution that produces high osmotic pressure but is still easily separable is a major challenge limiting the applicability of this process. The use of MD has been limited by membrane flooding due to oily and surfactant like compounds in industrial wastewaters and the transfer of volatile compounds across the membrane. Combining these technologies in a hybrid process overcomes their individual limitations, while exploiting the benefits of each. Effectively the FO unit pretreats the resulting diluted FO draw solution that is sent to the MD for regeneration via low-grade heat and product water recovery. The regenerated (re-concentrated) draw solution is then recycled to the FO unit. A key advantage of MD is that it is not limited by feed-solution osmotic backpressure, making it ideal for regenerating high-osmotic-pressure FO draw solutions. This, in turn, leads to strong potential for the integrated FO/MD process to treat high-salinity wastewaters that are difficult to treat economically by conventional technologies. The product water leaving the MD unit will be extremely high quality and directly suitable for reuse. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, RTI, in collaboration with industrial partner Veolia, has developed an integrated FO/MD process from lab to small pilot scale. In this presentation, pilot-scale testing efforts of this process technology with real industrial wastewater will be presented. Process performance data obtained on full-size FO and MD membrane modules as well as lessons learned from piloting scale-up and best application areas for the technology will be discussed.