Issue 3, 2014

Quantifying the potential of ultra-permeable membranes for water desalination

Abstract

In the face of growing water scarcity, it is critical to understand the potential of saltwater desalination as a long-term water supply option. Recent studies have highlighted the promise of new membrane materials that could desalinate water while exhibiting far greater permeability than conventional reverse osmosis (RO) membranes, but the question remains whether higher permeability can translate into significant reductions in the cost of desalinating water. Here, we address a critical question by evaluating the potential of such ultra-permeable membranes (UPMs) to improve the performance and cost of RO. By modeling the mass transport inside RO pressure vessels, we quantify how much a tripling in the water permeability of a membrane would reduce the energy consumption or the number of required pressure vessels for a given RO plant. We find that a tripling in permeability would allow for 44% fewer pressure vessels or 15% less energy for a seawater RO plant with a given capacity and recovery ratio. Moreover, a tripling in permeability would result in 63% fewer pressure vessels or 46% less energy for brackish water RO. However, we also find that the energy savings of UPMs exhibit a law of diminishing returns due to thermodynamics and concentration polarization at the membrane surface.

Graphical abstract: Quantifying the potential of ultra-permeable membranes for water desalination

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Sep 2013
Accepted
16 Jan 2014
First published
04 Feb 2014
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Energy Environ. Sci., 2014,7, 1134-1141

Quantifying the potential of ultra-permeable membranes for water desalination

D. Cohen-Tanugi, R. K. McGovern, S. H. Dave, J. H. Lienhard and J. C. Grossman, Energy Environ. Sci., 2014, 7, 1134 DOI: 10.1039/C3EE43221A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements