Abstract
Brine concentration is becoming quite important and high–in–demand due to increased strict regulations and environmental concerns. Current technologies available for brine concentration are thermal–based technologies and membrane–based ones like reverse osmosis (RO). Thermal–based technologies can theoretically concentrate solutions up to saturated concentration, but the energy consumption is too high due to a phase change from liquid to gas. On the other hand, RO can concentrate solutions up to 7 w/w% with far less energy consumption than thermal–based ones thanks to its non–phase change process. Thus, current available brine concentration technologies can’t achieve both high concentration and low energy consumption at the same time.
In this paper, we wish to introduce Toyobo’s newly developed hollow fiber “Brine Concentration Membrane” which can concentrate solutions up to 20 w/w% with far less energy than current available technologies. Also, we have developed a laboratory testing unit for brine concentration membrane recently.
