Research Abstracts

Libya is an arid and water scarce country. The main source of water is ground water, which is limited and over exploited. The deficit is increasing and certain measures must be taken to resolve the problem. Unconventional sources such as sea water desalination was seriously considered since mid seve

In this paper, the implications of the so-called optimized NF membrane properties on the economic assessment as well as the process performance of NF membrane system will be discussed. The predictive model for NF membranes such as the Donnan-steric-pore model has been used in conjunction with an eco

More stringent environmental legislation and new or updated water management strategies have been adopted at both federal and local levels to address the growing problem of increasing demand on limited fresh water resources. Competition for access to available fresh water resources is increasing the

This paper presents a rigorous mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model for optimal synthesis and design of dual-purpose seawater desalination plants. The proposed superstructure considers more alternative configurations than the model recently proposed by Mussati et al. [1] and all process

During the last decade intensive research and development have been carried out to increase the efficiency of the multi stage flash (MSF) desalination system. Although a great number of reviews have been published on this topic, no relevant improvements on the flow pattern distribution have been ach

A new deterministic algorithm [1] to solve a nonconvex, nonlinear optimization problem (a desalination process model) to global optimality is presented. The algorithm optimization was applied to the simplified model developed previously by Mussati et al. [2,3]. The objective was to determine the opt

Pretreatment process is a significant factor in the success of desalination process. It plays a key role in enhancing the lifetime of RO membranes in desalination process. Microfiltration process is emerging as an alternative solution for desalination pretreatment process. The baffled microfiltratio

Thin film composite (TFC) co-polyamide membranes were modified by adding carboxyl group to the polypiperazinamide backbone. The sodium chloride, sodium sulphate, magnesium chloride and magnesium sulphate rejections were measured at various feed pressures for the modified and unmodified membranes. Th

Reverse osmosis performance for certain low molecular weight organic solutes in water, such as phenol and its derivatives, is markedly different from that of simple aqueous salt solutions. The unusual solute–membrane affinity reverse osmosis behaviour of phenol–water–cellulose acetate system has bee

In order to avoid hydrophilic behaviour of ceramic membranes prepared with metal oxides, alumina and zirconia membranes with 200 and 50 nm pore diameters were grafted with fluoroalkylsilanes. The grafting was controlled by TGA, and the hydrophobicity was characterised by water contact angle and perm