Fundamentals and application of reverse osmosis membrane processes

Traditionally, thermal-based desalination was favored because it is easily adaptable and can produce high-quality water. Because humans have used thermal-based desalination for thousands of years to obtain freshwater by boiling salted feedwater, this traditional method has been expanded to forms such as multistage flash and multieffect distillation. However, with the development of membrane technology, membrane-based desalination has attracted increasing attention. Among these membrane-based desalination technologies, reverse osmosis (RO) is one of the most widely utilized technology for water treatment. The preference for RO for desalination has increased obviously. The capacities of installed RO plants for seawater desalination are higher than 65% of the overall installed capacities for seawater desalination in 2013. With the reduction in the overall cost of desalination systems, the capacity for desalination has continuously increased. Under these circumstances, the importance of RO systems has also tremendously increased.