Abstract
Desalination by pervaporation is a membrane process that is yet to be realized for commercial application. To investigate the feasibility and viability of scaling up, a process engineering model was developed to evaluate the energy requirement based on the experimental study of a hybrid polyvinyl alcohol/maleic acid/tetraethyl orthosilicate (PVA/MA/TEOS) Pervaporation Membrane. The energy consumption includes the external heating and cooling required for the feed and permeate streams, as well as the electrical power associated with pumps for re-circulating feed and maintaining vacuum. The thermal energy requirement is significant (e.g., up to 2609 MJ/m3 of thermal energy) and is required to maintain the feed stream at 65 °C in recirculation mode. The electrical energy requirement is very small (<0.2 kWh/m3 of required at 65 °C feed temperature at steady state) with the vacuum pump contributing to the majority of the electrical energy. The energy required for the pervaporation process was also compared to other desalination processes such as Reverse Osmosis (RO), Multi-stage Flash (MSF), and Multiple Effect Distillation (MED). The electrical energy requirement for pervaporation is the lowest among these desalination technologies. However, the thermal energy needed for pervaporation is significant. Pervaporation may be attractive when the process is integrated with waste heat and heat recovery option and used in niche applications such as RO brine concentration or salt recovery.
Highlights
Increasing population and global warming have created greater disparities between the supplies and demands of fresh water sources
A process engineering model was developed to assess the specific energy required for desalination by PV which includes thermal and electrical energy
The thermal energy required is significant, e.g., in recirculation mode, a significant initial thermal energy is required to heat the feed reservoir from 21 ◦ C to 65 ◦ C to start up the process and 2609 MJ/m3 is required to maintain the feed stream at 65 ◦ C
Summary
Increasing population and global warming have created greater disparities between the supplies and demands of fresh water sources. Each has its advantages and disadvantages and the choice of which technology to use is highly dependent on the requirement at hand, the use of different energy sources and restrictions faced at the specific site. Cost estimates seem to be very much site specific and the water production cost ranges from installation to installation because the water cost depends upon many factors including the desalination method, the level of feed water salinity, the energy source, and the capacity of the desalination plant. Thermal methods such as MSF and MED are generally adopted in Gulf
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