1.Title, Journal and Authors
Title: RO-PRO desalination: An integrated low-energy approach to seawater
Authors: Jeri L. Prantea, Jeffrey A. Ruskowitza, Amy E. Childressb, Andrea Achillic,*
a Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557, USA
b Astani Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
c Environmental Resources Engineering Department, Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA 95521, USA
2.Summary
RO process is the most commonly used technique to make freshwater. One of reason, which make it universal technique is, energy efficiency. However, RO process is still energy intensive desalination method(3~4 kWh/m3). Reducing the demanded energy in RO process is biggest task in this area(to exaggerate). PRO process is emerging technique to make green energy, which do not emit carbon dioxide, with salinity gradient. To make efficient PRO process, high salinity concentration water is needed and discharged water from the RO system has high salinity concentration. Thus, RO and PRO are complementary relations.
In this paper, the specific energy which demanded in RO process and the specific energy which produced by PRO process can be derived with feed and permeate water osmotic pressure (in case of PRO feed and draw water).
3. Application to research
PRO is energy generating process from infinite sources (salinity gradient). But, the stand alone PRO is not effective, yet. It means that construct PRO pilot is very challenging for all. Because of this reason, the accurate calculation and modeling for PRO efficiency is essential.
To make efficiency and plausible PRO model, the method in this paper will be used primarily.
4. Contact
Chansik Park (Integrated Ph.D. program)
Environmental Systems Engineering Lab.
Department of Environmental Science & Engineering
Gwangju Institute Science and Technology
1 Oryong-dong Buk-gu Gwangju, 500-712, Korea
Phone : +82-62-715-2461
E-mail : 14pcs@gist.ac.kr