Simulation and optimisation of a medium scale reverse osmosis brackish water desalination system under variable feed quality: Energy saving and maintenance opportunity

In this work, we considered model-based simulation and optimisation of a medium scale brackish water desalination process. The mathematical model is validated using actual multistage RO plant data of Al- Hashemite University (Jordan). Using the validated model, the sensitivity of different operating parameters such as pump pressure, brackish water flow rate and seasonal water temperature (covering the whole year) on the performance indicators such as productivity, product salinity and specific energy consumption of the process is conducted. For a given feed flow rate and pump pressure, winter season produces less freshwater that in summer in line with the assumption that winter water demand is less than that in summer. With the soaring energy prices globally, any opportunity for the reduction of energy is not only desirable from the economic point of view but is an absolute necessity to meet the net zero carbon emission pledge by many nations, as globally most desalination plants use fossil fuel as the main source of energy. Therefore, the second part of this paper attempts to minimise the specific energy consumption of the RO system using model-based optimisation technique. The study resulted not only 19 % reduction in specific energy but also 4.46 % increase in productivity in a particular season of the year. For fixed product demand, this opens the opportunity for scheduling cleaning and maintenance of the RO process without having to consider full system shutdown.