The most simple equation involving three parameters; namely, membrane feed concentration
Cf, permeate concentration
Cp and membrane rejection
R, has been used for calculating the membrane rejection of commercial RO plant.
The measured permeate concentration,
Cp, may be reasonable value, because it is an average value of all the permeates from the lowest concentration of the first drop to the highest concentration of the last.
On the other hand, it is difficult to determine exactly an average membrane feed concentration,
Cf, even if it is calculated as an arithmetical mean of inlet feed and outlet concentrated solution.
A set of newly developed equations for the design of high recovery reverse osmosis process is based on fluxional analysis of solute mass through the membrane, and contains such parameters as the concentration of inlet feed solution,
Cf, the outlet concentrated solution,
Cb, the membrane permeated product solution,
Cf, the volumetric fraction of product recovery,
f, and the membrane rejection,
R.
The experimental results obtained by commercial scale RO plant show that the equations to give more reasonable approximation than conventional ones.
View full abstract