A Dynamic Simulation Model of Reverse Osmosis Desalination Systems

Abstract

It is known that the water desalination industry was started early in the 20th century and true expansion and spread of this industry occurred during the 1960s. The multi-stage flash (MSF) unit and reverse osmosis (RO) process are the most popular desalination systems for the industry standard. In recent years, the market share of RO desalination has widely expanded because of significant improvements and advantages in membrane technology. To obtain the feasible operating conditions of the RO desalination system, an efficient and accurate process model used in the plant is necessary. This work tries to study the dynamic characteristics and process operation aspects of a large-scaled RO desalination plant. The steady-state and dynamic mathematical models for the membrane modules and RO plants presented in the literature are first studied. The feasible dynamic RO models are then utilized to develop the overall process flow sheets for the industrial scale RO desalination process by using powerful commercial process design simulators. Satisfactory results of the steady-state and dynamic operating conditions of the proposed RO process flow sheet are compared to those shown in the literature. Keywords: