Abstract
In recent years, the increasing threat to groundwater quality due to human activities has become a matter of great concern. The groundwater quality problems present today are caused by contamination and by overexploitation, or by combination of both, which are faced by many Indian states. Today, reverse osmosis (RO) membranes are the leading technology for desalination of groundwater because of their strong separation capabilities and exhibiting a great potential for treatment of waters worldwide. However, the RO process had some problems due to the formation of polarization films because high pressure operation and by-products which may generate bacteria and fouling. Also, high energy consumption and brine disposal problem is faced in RO process due to the limited recovery of water. These problems may be overcome by other membrane thermal process such as a membrane distillation (MD). This paper addresses the outline of RO and MD process for desalination. RO has developed over the past 40 years and MD is an emerging technology for brackish water desalination and yet is not fully implemented in industry. The MD is the better alternative to RO for desalination theoretically found in the literature.
Highlights
Water is the source of life, the basis of human survival, and the principal material base to guarantee the economy substantial development of a country
At 35◦C, flux decline was due to increasing feed solution osmotic pressure up to a recovery of about 70%. These results suggest that high-temperature operation and brackish water reverse osmosis (RO) processes could enable higher recovery and lower consumption, but operating near the limiting recovery creates an increased risk of a catastrophic fouling event
The fouling is not a major problem encountered in a membrane distillation (MD) process as compared to other pressure-driven membrane processes because MD performance is not sensitive to high concentration of feed; the presence of these sparingly soluble salts may lead to membrane fouling at moderate concentration
Summary
Water is the source of life, the basis of human survival, and the principal material base to guarantee the economy substantial development of a country. Consequent to rapid growth in population and increasing water demand, stress on water resources in India is increasing and per capita water availability is reducing day by day. Desalination of seawater or saline water has been practiced regularly for over 50 years and is well-established means of water supply in many countries It is feasible, technically and economically, to produce large quantities of water of excellent quantity from desalination processes. Challenges, still exist to produce desalination water for relatively large communities, for their continuous growth, development, and health, and for modern efficient agriculture, at moderate costs [13] Membrane processes such as reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), and electrodialysis (ED) have drawn more attention because of their strong separation capabilities and exhibiting a great potential for the treatment of water worldwide. This problem may be overcome by using the alternative membrane technology such as membrane distillation for groundwater desalination
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