Improving and Developing Innovative Processes to maximize Water Recovery

The Water Technologies Innovation Institute and Research Advancements (WTIIRA) has published a scientific paper entitled “Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Osmotically Assisted Reverse Osmosis (OARO) for Minimum Liquid Discharge” aiming to increase water recovery from brine. The study presented a mathematical model which was developed and experimented on pilot unit to analyze the operational data. The results showed that this technology has the potential to improve water recovery from brine leading to an increase in production and use of operational assets.

The study demonstrated that OARO is an innovative process that shows promising potential in the treatment of brine produced by conventional reverse osmosis (RO) systems. The Project team developed a mathematical model to describe the membrane processes based on mass balance equations and transport equations. This model allows for the simulation of a full-scale system consisting of a single-stage RO and a four-stage OARO.