Abstract
Osmotic backwash is a physical cleaning method based on water back flow from the permeate side to the feed side driven by osmotic pressure difference across reverse osmosis (RO) membrane. The concept of osmotic backwash was already introduced and verified in laboratory-scale experiments by a few previous studies. In this study, osmotic backwash observed in an RO pilot plant isdiscussed. The pilot plant was originally designed to demonstrate industrial water production with the capacity of 250 m3/d and the recovery rate of 95.5%. Osmotic backwash was observed accidentally when the plant was stopped, fixed, and re-operated by an unpredictable failure. Osmotic backwash started at the stop of RO operation when applied pressure was dropped below the osmotic pressure. An RO performance analysis with normalized parameters was used to quantify the effect of osmotic backwash. The reduction of fouling was quantified before and after osmotic backwash, but it was limited to remove all the foulants on the RO membrane surface.
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