Forward osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis process modeling for integration with seawater reverse osmosis desalination

Abstract

Osmotically driven membrane processes such as forward osmosis and pressure retarded osmosis may hold key advantages when integrated with seawater reverse osmosis to form hybrid FO-RO and RO-PRO systems. In this work, module-scale modeling of these two processes was improved by accurately representing the features of a spiral-wound membrane. The model captures important characteristics such as the cross-flow stream orientation, membrane baffling, and channel dimensions unique to spiral-wound membranes. The new module-scale model was then scaled to the system-level to compare various system designs for FO-RO and RO-PRO systems, most notably, a multi-stage recharge design was defined. Results indicate that the multi-stage recharge design leads to an increase in wastewater utilization, as high as 90%, when compared to the single-stage designs. Additionally, the multi-stage recharge configuration can increase the specific energy recovery of pressure retarded osmosis by over 75%. The multi-stage recharge design is found to be not only advantageous but may be also necessary to the integration of osmotically driven membrane processes with seawater reverse osmosis.