Solar- Powered Reverse Osmosis Technology for Brackish Water : The State of The Art Kwonit Mallick Leili Abkar Rafal Alshukri

Introduction Water covers 70% of our planet. Still, some 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, and a total of 2.7 billion find water scarce for at least one month of the year.

RO 60% MSF 27% MED 8% ED 3.6% Hybrid 0.8% EDI and others 0.6% Desalination Technology Market (IDA in Koschikowski, 2011) Thermal TechnologiesMembrane Technologies Multi Effect Distillation (MED) Multi Stage Flash (MSF) Vapour Compression (VC) Reverse Osmosis (RO) Electrodialysis (ED)

RES Can PVRO systems be optimized for more energy efficient operation than RO? In terms of cost, are PVRO systems more feasible than direct current RO systems? Renewable Energy Sources Wind Power Hydropower Solar energy Biomass Geothermal energy Rising oil prices are straining our nation’s pocketbook and forcing a hard look at how we plan to meet our energy needs for the future.

RE integrated with Desalination Renewable energy based desalination processes are economically attractive, cost-effective solution to water crisis in remote areas with poor infrastructure for freshwater and electricity production or transmission. Renewable energy is mostly used in RO processes (about 62%) followed by thermal processes like MSF and MED. Mostly used energy sources are solar photovoltaic (43%) followed by solar thermal and wind energy.

MSFMEDVCROED Renewable Technologies●●●●● Solar Thermal ●●● Solar PV ●●● Wind●●●●● Geothermal●●●●● Membrane Technologies Possible combinations of renewable energy and desalination technologies (Source: Al-Karaghouli et al., 2011)

PV-RO Diagram of a typical PVRO setup

 Solar sub-unit  Reverse osmosis membrane  AC/DC inverter  Electrical storage  Energy recovery device Some common components used to design a PV-RO desalination system are:

Reverse osmosis membrane Thin filmed, spiral-wound RO membranes are generally the standard choice for PV-RO desalination systems. Usually connected in series, these membranes can also be configured in parallel to each other or with other types of membranes.

Solar sub-unit: These are sets of solar photovoltaic modules electrically connected and mounted on a supporting structure. AC/DC inverter: These are required in cases where the plant is using AC pump.

Cost of water Cost of PV powered desalination is dependent on: energy cost site specific aspects like size of the plant feed water transportation solar insolation conductivity of the feed water

Location and CountryYearFeed TDS (mg/L)Cost ($/m3) Aqaba, JOR Baja California Sur, MEX Hammam Lif, TUN Denver, ITN, USA Ksar Ghilene, TUN Kulhudhuffushi, MDV Lisbon, INETI, PRT Mesquite, ITN, USA Murdoch Univ, AUS Nicosia, CYP NRC, Cairo, EGY Qatar village, JOR White Cliffs, AUS Cost overview of different PV-RO desalination systems (source: A.Ghermandi et al, 2009

Future Prospects for PVRO Pretreatment Energy recovery systems Cooling PV panels with feed water Use of energy storage system keeping the production cost low

Conclusions PV-RO desalination systems are ready for practical implementation. However, a standard design has to formulated for technical and economic feasibility. Though the cost of water production is still high relative to conventional desalination methods using fossil fuel, with the advancement of membrane and PV technology everyday, we can hope that PV-RO will soon become the solution to the growing scarcity of freshwater.

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