This technology is a cascading reverse osmosis system enabling high-efficiency water desalination with substantial energy savings relative to conventional single-stage reverse osmosis systems.
Current methods for water desalination often include single-stage reverse osmosis. This method typically keeps feed and retentate on one side and permeate on the other, thus restricting the countercurrent to a unilateral flow. As a result, this method is limited by high energy demands, poor recovery rates, and a decreased capacity to handle hypersaline streams. There are currently no available methods that address these bottlenecks in desalination technology.
This technology uses cascading reverse osmosis, which enables high desalination efficiency and requires only moderate hydraulic pressures to obtain substantial energy savings relative to conventional single-stage reverse osmosis systems. It uses bilateral countercurrent reverse osmosis (BCRO) stages, which, unlike conventional reverse osmosis, have a crossflow of saline streams on both sides in addition to the applied hydraulic pressure. This additional pressure results in an overall higher net recovery of water at a reduced energy cost. Furthermore, the design can be further optimized for specific operational and performance objectives, such as minimizing the specific energy requirement of ultrahigh recovery desalination. This system can effectively be an add-on to existing seawater desalination facilities to boost recovery rates or further concentrate the brine stream for disposal.
Patent Pending
IR CU17303
Licensing Contact: Richard Nguyen