Desmond F. Lawler

Reverse osmosis desalination: Water sources, technology, and today's challenges

Reverse osmosis membrane technology has developed over the past 40 years to a 44% share in world desalting production capacity, and an 80% share in the total number of desalination plants installed worldwide. The use of membrane desalination has increased as materials have improved and costs have decreased. Today, reverse osmosis membranes are the leading technology for new desalination installations, and they are applied to a variety of salt water resources using tailored pretreatment and membrane system design. Two distinct branches of reverse osmosis desalination have emerged: seawater reverse osmosis and brackish water reverse osmosis. Differences between the two water sources, including foulants, salinity, waste brine (concentrate) disposal options, and plant location, have created significant differences in process development, implementation, and key technical problems. Pretreatment options are similar for both types of reverse osmosis and depend on the specific components of the water source. Both brackish water and seawater reverse osmosis (RO) will continue to be used worldwide; new technology in energy recovery and renewable energy, as well as innovative plant design, will allow greater use of desalination for inland and rural communities, while providing more affordable water for large coastal cities. A wide variety of research and general information on RO desalination is available; however, a direct comparison of seawater and brackish water RO systems is necessary to highlight similarities and differences in process development. This article brings to light key parameters of an RO process and process modifications due to feed water characteristics.

The effect of antiscalant addition on calcium carbonate precipitation for a simplified synthetic brackish water reverse osmosis concentrate.

The primary limitations to inland brackish water reverse osmosis (RO) desalination are the cost and technical feasibility of concentrate disposal. To decrease concentrate volume, a side-stream process can be used to precipitate problematic scaling salts and remove the precipitate with a solid/liquid separation step. The treated concentrate can then be purified through a secondary reverse osmosis stage to increase overall recovery and decrease the volume of waste requiring disposal. Antiscalants are used in an RO system to prevent salt precipitation but might affect side-stream concentrate treatment. Precipitation experiments were performed on a synthetic RO concentrate with and without antiscalant; of particular interest was the precipitation of calcium carbonate. Particle size distributions, calcium precipitation, microfiltration flux, and scanning electron microscopy were used to evaluate the effects of antiscalant type, antiscalant concentration, and precipitation pH on calcium carbonate precipitation and filtration. Results show that antiscalants can decrease precipitate particle size and change the shape of the particles; smaller particles can cause an increase in microfiltration flux decline during the solid/liquid separation step. The presence of antiscalant during precipitation can also decrease the mass of precipitated calcium carbonate.

Particle size distributions in treatment processes: Theory and practice

The removal of particles from water and wastewater streams is essential and is usually accomplished through flocculation, sedimentation, and filtration. Understanding particle removal requires understanding of particle heterodispersity, especially with respect to size. A joint mathematical and experimental approach to studying changes in size distributions in these processes has proven quite insightful. Recommendations for analysts and manufacturers of particle size distribution analyzers based on mathematical principles are elucidated. Flocculation modeling is quite advanced and can be used predictively under certain well defined conditions, but a full description of changes in the size distribution is not available for all conditions encountered. Insights from flocculation modeling in the last ten years might make significant design and operational differences in the next ten years. Filtration modeling is not as advanced, inasmuch as filtration is a far more complex treatment process, but size distribution measurements have increased understanding enormously, and modeling has enabled design and operational changes in common practice to be understood.

Effects of Media and Plant Selection on Biofiltration Performance

AbstractThe goal of this research was to compare the pollutant removal effectiveness of biofiltration systems containing different media and plant species. A laboratory column study was conducted by using three media and two plant species, each with and without a submerged zone intended to promote denitrification. Twenty experiments were run by using synthetic storm water over the course of nine months, and ten of them were analyzed. The three media used were concrete sand, masonry sand, and a medium that meets the City of Austin’s biofiltration specifications. The plant species were Buffalograss 609 and Big Muhly, both commonly found in Texas. The results of this study showed a significant improvement in nutrient removal with the presence of these plants in the filter. The columns without plants were found to export substantial amounts of nitrate/nitrite, whereas the columns with the plants demonstrated a substantial removal of nutrients (59–79% of the total nitrogen and 77–94% of the total phosphorus). ...

Competitive separation of di- vs. mono-valent cations in electrodialysis: effects of the boundary layer properties.

In electrodialysis desalination, the boundary layer near ion-exchange membranes is the limiting region for the overall rate of ionic separation due to concentration polarization over tens of micrometers in that layer. Under high current conditions, this sharp concentration gradient, creating substantial ionic diffusion, can drive a preferential separation for certain ions depending on their concentration and diffusivity in the solution. Thus, this study tested a hypothesis that the boundary layer affects the competitive transport between di- and mono-valent cations, which is known to be governed primarily by the partitioning with cation-exchange membranes. A laboratory-scale electrodialyzer was operated at steady state with a mixture of 10mM KCl and 10mM CaCl(2) at various flow rates. Increased flows increased the relative calcium transport. A two-dimensional model was built with analytical solutions of the Nernst-Planck equation. In the model, the boundary layer thickness was considered as a random variable defined with three statistical parameters: mean, standard deviation, and correlation coefficient between the thicknesses of the two boundary layers facing across a spacer. Model simulations with the Monte Carlo method found that a greater calcium separation was achieved with a smaller mean, greater standard deviation, or more negative correlation coefficient. The model and experimental results were compared for the cationic transport number as well as the current and potential relationship. The mean boundary layer thickness was found to decrease from 40 to less than 10 μm as the superficial water velocity increased from 1.06 to 4.24 cm/s. The standard deviation was greater than the mean thickness at slower water velocities and smaller at faster water velocities.

Selecting among physical/chemical processes for removing synthetic organics from water

A rational framework for selecting the least-cost treatment technology for aqueous organic wastes was developed by using performance and cost models. The following three treatment options were evaluated for 15 different chemicals in this research: packed tower air stripping, packed tower air stripping followed by gas-phase adsorption (granular activated carbon) of off-gases, and liquid-phase adsorption (granular activated carbon). The least-cost air stripping tower design was found to change when off-gas treatment was added. Air stripping without or-gas treatment was determined to be less expensive than liquid-phase adsorption in nearly every case. A methodology was created for comparing the relative costs of liquid-phase adsorption and air stripping with gas-phase adsorption

Effect of antiscalants on precipitation of an RO concentrate: Metals precipitated and particle characteristics for several water compositions

Inland brackish water reverse osmosis (RO) is economically and technically limited by the large volume of salty waste (concentrate) produced. The use of a controlled precipitation step, followed by solid/liquid separation (filtration), has emerged as a promising side-stream treatment process to treat reverse osmosis concentrate and increase overall system recovery. The addition of antiscalants to the RO feed prevents precipitation within the membrane system but might have a deleterious effect on a concentrate treatment process that uses precipitation to remove problematic precipitates. The effects of antiscalant type and concentration on salt precipitation and precipitate particle morphology were evaluated for several water compositions. The primary precipitate for the synthetic brackish waters tested was calcium carbonate; the presence of magnesium, sulfate, minor ions, and antiscalant compounds affected the amount of calcium precipitated, as well as the phases of calcium carbonate formed during precipitation. Addition of antiscalant decreased calcium precipitation but increased incorporation of magnesium and sulfate into precipitating calcium carbonate. Antiscalants prevented the growth of nucleated precipitates, resulting in the formation of small (100-200 nm diameter) particles, as well as larger (6-10 microm) particles. Elemental analysis revealed changes in composition and calcium carbonate polymorph with antiscalant addition and antiscalant type. Results indicate that the presence of antiscalants does reduce the extent of calcium precipitation and can worsen subsequent filtration performance.

Filtration of heterodisperse suspensions: Modeling of particle removal and head loss

Abstract The specific objective of this research was to revise an existing depth filter ripening model designed for monodisperse suspensions to account for heterodisperse suspensions and to calibrate and test the resulting model with experimental results. The comparison of the detailed experimental results with the mathematical model provided a good test of the model to handle both conditions for which it was designed and conditions for which it was not designed. When calibrated with results of the monodisperse experiments, the model did a poor job of predicting filtration performance in the bi-modal and tri-modal experiments; however when calibrated with results of non-monodisperse experiments, the model performed significantly better.

DLVO Approximation Methods for Predicting the Attachment of Silver Nanoparticles to Ceramic Membranes

This article examines the influence of three common stabilizing agents (citrate, poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP), and branched poly(ethylenimine) (BPEI)) on the attachment affinity of silver nanoparticles to ceramic water filters. Citrate-stabilized silver nanoparticles were found to have the highest attachment affinity (under conditions in which the surface potential was of opposite sign to the filter). This work demonstrates that the interaction between the electrical double layers plays a critical role in the attachment of nanoparticles to flat surfaces and, in particular, that predictions of double-layer interactions are sensitive to boundary condition assumptions (constant charge vs constant potential). The experimental deposition results can be explained when using different boundary condition assumptions for different stabilizing molecules but not when the same assumption was assumed for all three types of particles. The integration of steric interactions can also explain the experimental deposition results. Particle size was demonstrated to have an effect on the predicted deposition for BPEI-stabilized particles but not for PVP.

Equalization/neutralization modeling An application to fluoride removal

Abstract The chemistry of a fluoride removal system (gas scrubbing to capture hydrogen fluoride and subsequent precipitation of calcium fluoride with lime) was studied, with particular emphasis on the effects of and on pH. Carbonate, when present, was found to interfere with the precipitation in the pH range 7–11 but little carbonate was in the system studied because of the low pH and high gas/liquid exchange in the scrubber. A general approach to modeling equalization/neutralization problems, using mass balances on conservative substances and a charge balance to determine pH, was presented and illustrated via application to the fluoride removal system.