Environmental assessment of desalination processes: Reverse osmosis and Memstill®

Tarnacki, Katharina; Meneses, Montse; Melin, Thomas; Medevoort, J. van; Jansen, A.E.

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2012.04.009

Cited by 99 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…A life cycle assessment (LCA) is therefore needed to assess this possibility for reduced carbon emissions of MD. Such assessments have already been conducted, and do indicate overall environmental benefits of the MD process [50,51].…”

Section: Cost Impact Of Carbon Tax On MD Ro and Medmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

et al. 2013

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The economics membrane distillation (MD) and common seawater desalination methods including multi effect distillation (MED), multistage flash (MSF) and reverse osmosis (RO) are compared. MD also has the opportunity to enhance RO recovery, demonstrated experimentally on RO concentrate from groundwater. MD concentrated RO brine to 361,000 mg/L total dissolved solids, an order of magnitude more saline than typical seawater, validating this potential. On a reference 30,000 m 3 /day plant, MD has similar economics with other thermal desalination techniques, but RO is more cost effective. With the inclusion of a carbon tax of $23 per tonne carbon in Australia, RO remained the economically favourable process. However, when heat comes at a cost equivalent of 10% of the value of the steam needed for MD and MED, under a carbon tax regime, the cost of MD reduces to $0.66/m 3 which is cheaper than RO and MED. The favour to MD was due to lower material cost. On low thermally, high electrically efficient installations MD can desalinate water from low temperature (<50°C) heat sources at a cost of $0.57/m 3 . Our assessment has found that generally, MD opportunities occur when heat is available at low cost, while extended recovery of RO brine is also viable.

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Section: Cost Impact Of Carbon Tax On MD Ro and Medmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is the lowest value reported from real testing (or highest GOR), but to achieve this, the water must be heated to 80-90 °C. [51].…”

Section: Membrane Distillation Progress and Technological Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

et al. 2013

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“…This is the lowest value reported from real testing (or highest GOR), but to achieve this, the water must be heated to 80-90 °C. The electrical energy required was assumed to be 0.75 kWh/m 3 [133]. The Memstill technology has been licenced to Aquastill and Keppel Seghers for industrial module production.…”

Section: Memstill and Aquastillmentioning

confidence: 99%

Advances in Membrane Distillation for Water Desalination and Purification Applications

Camacho

Dumée

Zhang

et al. 2013

Water

643

342

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Membrane distillation is a process that utilizes differences in vapor pressure to permeate water through a macro-porous membrane and reject other non-volatile constituents present in the influent water. This review considers the fundamental heat and mass transfer processes in membrane distillation, recent advances in membrane technology, module configurations, and the applications and economics of membrane distillation, and identifies areas that may lead to technological improvements in membrane distillation as well as the application characteristics required for commercial deployment. Keywordsa function of temperature, vapor pressure, and of the gas molecular mass K 0 membrane characteristic defined by Equation (9) Kn Knudsen number K(T) a function of temperature and molecular weight of the gas l mean free path of the molecules l m distance between parallel spacer fibres (m) LEP Limit Entry Pressure (kPa) M molecular mass (g/mol) M w molecular weights of water (g/mol) M a molecular weights of air (g/mol) n number of CNTs per unit cross section in bucky-paper P pressure in the air gap (kPa) half time to reach the maximum intensity-laser flash technique (s) t proportion of conductive heat (balance due to evaporative heat) loss through the membrane T mean temperature in the pores (K)

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“…Apart from the high energy consumption of the desalination technologies, there is also the brine disposal which is recognized as the other major environmental impact [47]. Thus environmental impact assessments (EIA) should be carried out before setting up a plant.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Desalination using renewable energy sources on the arid islands of South Aegean Sea

Mentis

Karalis

Zervos

et al. 2016

Energy

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a b s t r a c tWater and energy supply are strongly interrelated and their efficient management is crucial for a sustainable future. Water and energy systems on several Greek islands face a number of pressing issues. Water supply is problematic as regards both to the water quality and quantity. There is significant lack of water on several islands and this is mainly dealt with tanker vessels which transport vast amounts of water from the mainland. At the same time island energy systems are congested and rely predominantly on fossil fuels, despite the abundant renewable energy potential. These issues may be addressed by combining desalination and renewable energy technologies. It is essential to analyse the feasibility of this possibility. This study focuses on developing a tool capable of designing and optimally sizing desalination and renewable energy units. Several parameters regarding an island's water demand and the desalination's energy requirements are taken into account as well as input data which concern technological performance, resource availability and economic data. The tool is applied on three islands in the South Aegean Sea, Patmos (large), Lipsoi (medium) and Thirasia (small). Results of the modelling exercise show that the water selling price ranges from 1.45 V/m 3 for the large island, while the corresponding value is about 2.6 V/m 3 for the small island, figures significantly lower than the current water cost (7 e9 V/m 3 ).

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Environmental assessment of desalination processes: Reverse osmosis and Memstill®

Cited by 99 publications

References 18 publications

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

Economic analysis of desalination technologies in the context of carbon pricing, and opportunities for membrane distillation

Advances in Membrane Distillation for Water Desalination and Purification Applications

Desalination using renewable energy sources on the arid islands of South Aegean Sea

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