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Technical and economic of various pretreatment methods for desalination of seawater using reverse osmosis

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Abstract

Considering the serious water crisis in the world and the use of saltwater resources of the seas and oceans as available water resources, desalination technology for these waters is to be raised in all societies of the world. Due to the protection and increasing efficiency of desalination methods, the design of a suitable pretreatment method for desalination of salt water has made the process more economic. The methodology used in this research for the analysis of technological schemes includes two groups of technological and economic indicators: (A) water quality data and (B) economic characteristics of the processes. The study is based on a set of experimental projections of water quality data after pretreatments, such as turbidity and the SDI15 (silt density index) index. These data were received from several full-scale systems and full-scale plants. These plants are (1) conventional pretreatment, (2) MF (microfilter) pretreatment, and (3) UF (ultrafilter) pretreatment method. The average SDI15 index of filtrate during the study time provided by the UF and MF systems was 1.5 and 2.9, respectively. The daily decay of permeability by UF and MF systems was 0.86% and 0.45%, respectively. The total cost of the produced water (including investment and O&M) for the conventional treatment full-scale plant, the pretreatment based on the MF membrane, and the UF membrane were obtained at approximately 0.42, 0.46, and 0.55euro/m3 of produced water. Membrane-based pretreatment is a competitive technological alternative to conventional methods.

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Notes

  1. : Dissolved air flotation.

  2. : dissolve organic carbon.

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Acknowledgements

This research would not have been possible without the assistance of many. The authors would like to appreciate the cooperation of the "Raad Ab" company and the collections of this company in Hormozgan and Golestan, which helped a lot in this research.

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All expenses were borne by the researchers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Department of Environmental Engineering, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

    V. Pesarakloo, A. H. Hassani & A. H. Javid

  2. Environmental Health Engineering Department, School of Health, Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, Bandaraabbas, Iran

    V. Alipour

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  1. V. Pesarakloo
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  2. A. H. Hassani
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  3. V. Alipour
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  4. A. H. Javid
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All the authors participated in the ideation and execution of the project, as well as the initial writing of the article or its revision, and all accept the responsibility for the accuracy and correctness of the content in this article by finalizing the present article.

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Correspondence to A. H. Hassani.

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Editorial responsibility: Samareh Mirkia.

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Pesarakloo, V., Hassani, A.H., Alipour, V. et al. Technical and economic of various pretreatment methods for desalination of seawater using reverse osmosis. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-024-05565-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-024-05565-0

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