STUDY OF RO SYSTEM FOR ITS PERFORMANCE ON VARIOUS MEMBRANES

Abstract

Reverse Osmosis (RO) is the pressure - induced reversal of the natural osmotic-flow phenomenon. While osmosis has been known for over 200 years, reverse osmosis has only recently gained commercial significance. Today its applications are numerous including purification of waste water that contain metals and salts, production of potable water from seawater, purification of chemicals, abatement of water pollution, etc. In this dissertation, Numerical Simulation of RO process, implemented on an experimental unit, has been carried out. The unit consists of a spiral wound RO module, a OF module and a flat plate test cell. To establish the membrane performance characteristics experiments have been conducted by using salt water. The experimental observations so obtained are analyzed, and used to estimate the characteristic - constants of membrane. The results of numerical simulation compare well with the experimental data. Few Cellulose Acetate membranes wiYealso prepared in the departmental laboratory and the structural analysis of membranes wext done using S.E.M. technique