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Desalination plants, which provide drinking water for residents, rely on electricity generated by fossil fuels. However, the excessive use of fossil fuels leads to their rapid depletion and has detrimental effects on the environment. Thus, the use of renewable energy resources in water desalination has gained popularity. The current research investigates the integration of renewable energy systems with seawater and brackish water desalination technologies. In this regard, three primary renewable energy sources—wind, solar, and geothermal—are selected. Accordingly, a thorough investigation of the related research published and the trend of evolutions between 2013 and 2023 is carried out for Reverse Osmosis (RO), Multistage flash (MSF), and Multi-effect distillation (MED)-based water desalination facilities coupled with renewable energy sources. In our investigation, we particularly focus on performance indicators, energy efficiency, economic factors, and environmental effects. Also, the associated challenges of these hybrid systems, such as technological complexity, unpredictability, and intermittency, are addressed. Prospects for the future that address these issues and the prospects of using renewable energy in water desalination technologies are also covered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its high pollutant rejection and low energy usage, the spiral wound module of reverse osmosis (RO) process is the most commonly used technology utilised in wastewater treatment. For a spiral wound module, the presence of a feed spacer is important as a key solution to mitigate the concentration polarisation phenomenon, due to disorderly fluid flow, and to improve the mass transfer coefficient. Undoubtedly, improvements in the spiral wound module design, mainly in the symmetrical shape of the feed spacer, can have a significant impact on the cost and probable use of these modules. Despite the wide interest in appraising the impact of feed spacer geometry and orientation on the performance of a spiral wound module for RO process-based water desalination, the hydrodynamics of feed spacers (pressure drop and mass transfer coefficient) and the associated influences of feed spacer design (the height of the feed spacer, the angle of the filaments, and the porosity) on the removal of pollutants from wastewater have not yet been addressed. The current investigation aims to fill this gap by studying the hydrodynamics and design parameters of the selected parallelogram feed spacer type ultrafiltration (UF−3) for the removal of dimethylphenol from wastewater. Using model-based simulation, the impacts of UF−3 feed spacer design parameters, including the height, angle between the filaments (orientation), and porosity on the pressure drop, friction factor, axial flow fluid velocity, mass transfer coefficient, water flux, dimethylphenol rejection, recovery rate, and specific energy consumption are detailed in this study. The study intends to demonstrate the optimum design features of UF−3 feed spacer that should be considered to assure the highest elimination of dimethylphenol from wastewater in addition to the lowest specific energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reverse osmosis (RO) technology has engaged in the removal of a wide set of pollutants including dimethylphenol at a high rejection. The goal of this research is to explore the influence of spacer geometric design on the performance metrics of an individual spiral wound module of RO process to eliminate dimethylphenol from wastewater. The study entails the embedding of an author's model developed to envisage the performance of a spiral wound membrane‐based wastewater treatment with a detailed model of feed spacer (collected from the open literature) utilised to characterise the pressure drop along the feed channel. A comprehensive simulation study is conducted to observe the impact of feed flow rate on the energy dissipation and mass transfer coefficient of several selected feed spacers of different design characteristics. Accordingly, the consequence of feed spacer design parameters was analysed on the performance metrics of RO process including the dimethylphenol rejection and water recovery. It is found that the angle of flow diversion, voidage, and feed spacer height have a considerable effect on the pressure drop, mass transfer coefficient, and axial velocity, which accordingly affect the overall performance indicators. The results show the success of feed spacers 80MIL‐1 and 80MIL‐2 to gain the highest dimethylphenol rejection and associated water recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse Osmosis (RO) process is being engaged to yield fresh water from brackish water sources. However, the RO process is characterized by its high specific energy consumption (SEC) owing to high-pressure pumps. The current study focuses on reducing the SEC of the brackish water RO desalination plant using model-based optimization practice. The inlet conditions of RO process such as the feed pressure, flow rate (individual membrane module and total plant) and temperature, have a substantial influence on the performance indicators namely, water productivity, product concentration and SEC. Therefore, the optimisation of this study has been directed to determine optimal inlet conditions within feasible limits to minimise SEC. Arab Potash Company (APC) brackish water RO desalination plant has been considered as the case study. The optimal inlet conditions have resulted in a significant energy saving of 27.97% depending on the set of decision variables being considered at a fixed brackish water feed concentration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various hybrid desalination systems have been proposed during the last two decades to improve the produced water quality, energy efficiency, water production rate and sustainability among others, receiving therefore a rapid industrial implementation. Desalination processes are energy intensive and this energy is mostly provided by fossil fuels, especially for large scale commercial plants. No doubt, the use of renewable energy (RE) sources is a way forward to decrease the environmental and related health impact to produce and supply freshwater in remote regions with severe water shortage and an unfavourable or unfeasible connection to the public electrical grid. However, most installed renewable energy desalination plants have small capacities, yet facing several issues for long term operation. Therefore, this study restricts to the use of fossil fuel based energy source for desalination and provides a thorough analysis summarising the design, operation, and performance, techno-economic and associated challenges of hybrid seawater desalination systems based on several experimental/real plant and simulation studies reported since 2000. It includes mature membrane-based and thermal-based desalination technologies, namely Reverse Osmosis (RO), multistage flash (MSF), and multi-effect distillation (MED), and a number of emerging hybrid membrane-thermal water desalination technologies. Future opportunities in hybrid systems, including RO/MSF and RO/MED are also highlighted. • Challenges and opportunities membrane and thermal seawater desalination processes are highlighted. • Fossil fuel based energy sources will continue to dominate in coming decades. • Application of renewable energy based energy sources is getting the momentum. • Several hybrid processes have potential for future commercial applications. • Hybrid processes can mitigate fouling/scaling problems and can be more energy efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solar energy, amongst all renewable energies, has attracted inexhaustible attention all over the world as a supplier of sustainable energy. The energy requirement of major seawater desalination processes such as multistage flash (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED) and reverse osmosis (RO) are fulfilled by burning fossil fuels, which impact the environment significantly due to the emission of greenhouse gases. The integration of solar energy systems into seawater desalination processes is an attractive and alternative solution to fossil fuels. This study aims to (i) assess the progress of solar energy systems including concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) to power both thermal and membrane seawater desalination processes including MSF, MED, and RO and (ii) evaluate the economic considerations and associated challenges with recommendations for further improvements. Thus, several studies on a different combination of seawater desalination processes of solar energy systems are reviewed and analysed concerning specific energy consumption and freshwater production cost. It is observed that although solar energy systems have the potential of reducing carbon footprint significantly, the cost of water production still favours the use of fossil fuels. Further research and development on solar energy systems are required to make their use in desalination economically viable. Alternatively, the carbon tax on the use of fossil fuels may persuade desalination industries to adopt renewable energy such as solar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Reverse Osmosis (RO) process in seawater desalination to provide high-quality drinking water is progressively increased compared to thermal technologies. In this paper, multistage spiral wound RO desalination process is considered. Each stage consists of several pressure vessels (PVs) organised in parallel with membrane modules in each PV being organised in series. This allows disconnecting a set of PVs and membrane modules depending on the requirement of cleaning and maintenance. While this flexibility offers the opportunity of generating several RO configurations, we presented only four such configurations of the RO system and analysed them via simulation and optimisation. Production of different grades of water catering different needs of a city is also considered for each of these configurations. The optimisation has resulted in the optimal operating conditions, which maximises the water productivity and minimises the specific energy consumption of the proposed configurations for a given water grade in terms of salinity. For instance, the results indicate that the proposed RO networks can produce drinking water of 500 ppm salinity with a minimum specific energy consumption of 3.755 kWh/m3. The strategy offers the production of different grades of water without plant shutdown while maintaining the membrane modules throughout the year. • Flexible design, operation and maintenance of RO desalination process proposed. • Proposed design is capable of producing different grades of water. • Operation parameters are optimised giving minimum energy consumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse Osmosis (RO) process can be considered as one of the intensively used pioneering equipment for reusing wastewater of several applications. The recent study presented the development of an accurate model for predicting the dimethylphenol removal from wastewater via RO process. The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was applied to carry out this challenge based on actual experimental data collected from the literature. The independent variables considered are the inlet pressure (5.83–13.58) atm, inlet temperature (29.5–32) ° C, inlet feed flow rate (2.166–2.583) × 10–4 m3/s, and inlet concentration (0.854–8.049) × 10-3 kmol/m3 and the dimethylphenol removal is considered as the response variable. The analysis of variance showed that the inlet temperature and feed flow rate have a negative influence on dimethylphenol removal from wastewater while the inlet pressure and concentration show a positive influence. In this regard, F-value of 240.38 indicates a considerable contribution of the predicted variables of pressure and concentration against the process dimethylphenol rejection. Also, the predicted R2 value of 0.9772 shows the high accuracy of the model. An overall assessment of simulating the performance of RO process against the operating parameters has been systematically demonstrated using the proposed RSM model. Response Surface Method forms RO model to remove dimethylphenol from wastewater. The model validation is realised based on actual data of dimethylphenol removal. RSM model shows high F-value that pointed out high contribution of the variables. RSM model depicts R2 of 0.9772 of high-support of the model and experimental data. Effect of main parameters on dimethylphenol removal analysed by 3D counter plots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we considered model-based simulation and optimisation of a medium scale brackish water desalination process. The mathematical model is validated using actual multistage RO plant data of Al- Hashemite University (Jordan). Using the validated model, the sensitivity of different operating parameters such as pump pressure, brackish water flow rate and seasonal water temperature (covering the whole year) on the performance indicators such as productivity, product salinity and specific energy consumption of the process is conducted. For a given feed flow rate and pump pressure, winter season produces less freshwater that in summer in line with the assumption that winter water demand is less than that in summer. With the soaring energy prices globally, any opportunity for the reduction of energy is not only desirable from the economic point of view but is an absolute necessity to meet the net zero carbon emission pledge by many nations, as globally most desalination plants use fossil fuel as the main source of energy. Therefore, the second part of this paper attempts to minimise the specific energy consumption of the RO system using model-based optimisation technique. The study resulted not only 19 % reduction in specific energy but also 4.46 % increase in productivity in a particular season of the year. For fixed product demand, this opens the opportunity for scheduling cleaning and maintenance of the RO process without having to consider full system shutdown. • Simulation and optimisation of a medium scale brackish water desalination plant are presented. • Impact of pressure, flow rate, and temperature on performance are evaluated. • Optimisation results in 19 % reduction in specific energy and 4.46 % gain in productivity. • Optimisation results in membrane cleaning and maintenance opportunity without full shutdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse Osmosis (RO) processes are readily used for removing pollutants, such as dimethylphenol from wastewater. A number of operating parameters must be controlled within the process constraints to achieve an efficient removal of such pollutants. Understanding the process dynamics is absolutely essential and is a pre-step for designing any effective controllers for any process. In this work, a detailed distributed two-dimensional dynamic (x and y dimensions and time) model for a spiral-wound RO process is developed extending the 2-D steady state model of the authors published earlier. The model is used to capture the dynamics of the RO process for the removal of dimethylphenol from wastewater. The performance of the 2-D model is compared with that obtained using 1-D dynamic model before the model is being used to investigate the performance of the RO process for a range of operating conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Novel TBR-RO hybrid systems are constructed for phenol removal from wastewater. • Five different multistage configurations of RO process are integrated with TBR. • The performance of each system was investigated via a specific mathematical model. • Flowrate and concentration have little effect on the operation of RO-TBR system. • 2:1 permeate reprocessing configuration of RO attains the highest phenol removal. Phenol is one of the most toxic and harmful pollutants in industrial wastewater streams, the removal of which is therefore of critical importance. The use of reverse osmosis (RO) systems as a means of treating wastewater is continuously growing. This research investigates the effect of operating parameters on the performance of five different multistage RO configurations coupled with a trickle bed reactor (TBR) using model-based simulation. The results were compared, and an analysis was then performed to identify which hybrid TBR and multistage RO arrangement rejected the most phenol content. The basis for comparison was four performance metrics of permeate concentration, rejection, recovery, and specific energy. The study found that the flow rate and concentration have little effect on the operation unless there is a concurrent increase of both. It was also found that the four-performance metrics used were interlinked and affect the quality and quantity of the final freshwater product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reverse Osmosis (RO) has already proved its worth as an efficient treatment method in chemical and environmental engineering applications. Various successful RO attempts for the rejection of organic and highly toxic pollutants from wastewater can be found in the literature over the last decade. Dimethylphenol is classified as a high-toxic organic compound found ubiquitously in wastewater. It poses a real threat to humans and the environment even at low concentration. In this paper, a model based framework was developed for the simulation and optimisation of RO process for the removal of dimethylphenol from wastewater. We incorporated our earlier developed and validated process model into the Species Conserving Genetic Algorithm (SCGA) based optimisation framework to optimise the design and operational parameters of the process. To provide a deeper insight of the process to the readers, the influences of membrane design parameters on dimethylphenol rejection, water recovery rate and the level of specific energy consumption of the process for two different sets of operating conditions are presented first which were achieved via simulation. The membrane parameters taken into consideration include membrane length, width and feed channel height. Finally, a multi-objective function is presented to optimise the membrane design parameters, dimethylphenol rejection and required energy consumption. Simulation results affirmed insignificant and significant impacts of membrane length and width on dimethylphenol rejection and specific energy consumption, respectively. However, these performance indicators are negatively influenced due to increasing the feed channel height. On the other hand, optimisation results generated an optimum removal of dimethylphenol at reduced specific energy consumption for a wide sets of inlet conditions. More importantly, the dimethylphenol rejection increased by around 2.51% to 98.72% compared to ordinary RO module measurements with a saving of around 20.6% of specific energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brackish water can be considered an important source of fresh water, via desalination, especially for arid districts. Reverse Osmosis (RO) process has been successfully used to produce fresh water from brackish water sources. However, there is still the challenge of improving the performance of multistage RO desalination plants. From the selection of the RO configurations to the selection of the appropriate type of membranes and the operating conditions at the end determines the performance of RO process in terms of recovery, salt rejection, energy consumptions and ultimately the cost of production of freshwater. Using model-based simulation, this work attempts to investigate the most suitable types of membranes for an industrial scale RO plant from a set of different membrane brands that would attain the highest-performance at lowest specific energy consumption (SEC). As a case study, we considered a multistage multi-pass medium-scale RO plant (1200 m3/day) of Arab Potash Company (APC, Jordan) which produces high quality water for the boilers after pre-treatment stage. The simulation results confirmed that employment of the Filmtec BW30LE-440 would increase water recovery by about 22% besides reducing the product salinity and SEC by about 15% and 10%, respectively compared to the existing membrane. • Different membrane brands are applied on the original design of RO system of APC. • An accurate mathematical model was used to carry out an intensive simulation. • The performance metrics of the membrane brands are compared vs the original one. • The most suitable membrane brand for a RO plant is explored. • The energy consumption is improved using the Filmtec BW30LE-440 membrane brand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reverse osmosis (RO) process is one of the best desalination methods, using membranes to reject several impurities from seawater and brackish water. To systematically perceive the transport phenomena of solvent and solutes via the membrane texture, several mathematical models have been developed. To date, a large number of simulation and optimisation studies have been achieved to gauge the influence of control variables on the performance indexes, to adjust the key variables at optimum values, and to realise the optimum production indexes. This paper delivers an intensive review of the successful models of the RO process and both simulation and optimisation studies carried out on the basis of the models developed. In general, this paper investigates the scope and limitations of the RO process, as well as proving the maturity of the associated perspective methodologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times two or more desalination processes have been combined to form integrated systems that have been widely used to resolve the limitations of individual processes as well as producing high performance systems. In this regard, a simple integrated system of the Multi Effect Distillation (MED)/Thermal Vapour Compression (TVC) and Permeate Reprocessing Reverse Osmosis (PRRO) process was developed by the same authors and confirmed its validity after a comparison study against other developed configurations. However, this design has a considerable amount of retentate flowrate and low productivity. To resolve this issue, two novel designs of MED and double reverse osmosis (RO) processes including Permeate and Retentate Reprocessing designs (PRRP and RRRO) are developed and modelled in this paper. To systematically assess the consistency of the presented designs, the performance indicators of the novel designs are compared against previous simple designs of MED and PRRO processes at a specified set of operating conditions. Results show the superiority of the integrated MED and double permeate reprocessing design. This has specifically achieved both economic and environmental advantages where total productivity is increased by around 9% and total retentate flowrate (disposed to water bodies) is reduced by 5% with a marginally reduced energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]