CH142L – Chemical Engineering Laboratory

Membrane Separation Applications – Reverse Osmosis

Rhick Jenzer Y. Chua
School of Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering and Sciences, Mapua University, Muralla St., Intramuors, Manila,
Philippines 1002

Abstract
There are several ways to do membrane separation process for the water purification process and theses can be
microfiltration, ultrafiltration, pervaporation, and reverse osmosis. In this experiment the reverse osmosis in the desalination of
saltwater is focused and show the effect of the permeate flow rate of the process with different conditions of the parameters and
these are the pressure drop, stirring speed, inlet salt concentration. The objective of this experiment is to see the effects of the said
parameters to the efficiency of the revers osmosis. By the aid of Wolfram program, playing the program through changing the
parameters and look for the activity that is happening in the program, therefore it can give the data needed to analyze in the
reverse osmosis process in water purification of saltwater. The objective of this experiment was met and shows the relationship of
the parameters to the process.

Keywords: reverse osmosis, pressure drop, stirring speed, inlet salt concentration, saltwater

1. Introduction

There are various methods that can be used in membrane separation process which is used for the water
purification process. These processes were the microfiltration, ultrafiltration, pervaporation, and reverse osmosis. In
this experiment, reverse osmosis is focused. Reverse osmosis is a good choice for filtration to have a clean water
where it uses a tight wound semipermeable membrane to remove dissolved contaminants [1]. The contaminants that
is possible present in the water are chlorine and fluorine, lead, arsenic, chromium, radium, barium, cadmium, salts,
heavy metals, parasites, volatile organic compounds, herbicides and pesticides, total dissolved solids etc.
Specifically, the reverse osmosis in the desalination of saltwater will be the one tackled in this experiment wherein
desalination is the common way of converting saltwater into freshwater. The process applies pressure to the
membrane which causes the different flow of fluid into high solute concentration and low solute concentration.
Through that the dissolved contaminant is redirected by overcoming the natural osmotic pressure [2]. There are now
known new technologies that using desalination, the liquid turns into vapor which is called the evaporation-
condensation process but it consumes a lot of energy since you need to supply the latent heat of water to boil it off.

Figure 1. Reverse Osmosis Process

Figure 1 shows the diagram process of the reverse osmosis. Since the technologies developing, the reverse
osmosis efficiency also increases because of the new produces methods that is much better because of the
technologies used. These are can be the innovative designs, advance membrane materials, more efficient pumps, and
 CH142L – Chemical Engineering Laboratory

improved pretreatment methods. Reverse osmosis is also used in industrial application such as the municipal water
treatment.
In this experiment, it will identify the effects of the reverse osmosis process with a change in pressure drop,
stirring speed, mass transfer coefficient, and initial salt concentration to the permeate flux.

2. Methodology

2.1 Experimental Setup

This experiment is aided by the Wolfram Stimulator [3]. The stimulator can determine the
permeate with a various pressure drop, stirring bar and inlet salt mass fraction. The stimulator also gives
the graph of the effect of pressure drop in the water reflux with various condition. In the stimulator it also
presents the diagram of a reverse osmosis wherein salt water is fed in the chamber with a membrane of
permeable to water. For the outlet of the chamber it has the pure water at low pressure which is enriched
with salt. Figure 2 shows the content of the program or stimulator.

Figure 2. Wolfram Stimulator for Reverse Osmosis

2.2 Data analysis
In order to investigates the activity in the reverse osmosis, the variety condition for the pressure
drop, stirring bar speed and inlet salt mass fraction can help to gather the data needed to easily analyze
reaction of permeate flow rate, retentate and the water reflux. The condition for the pressure drop were
30, 50, 70 and 90 atm while for the stirring speed were 40,60 and 80 rad/s and lastly the initial salt mass
fraction were 0.03, 0.04, 0.05.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1 Effect of pressure drop on permeate flow rate

In this part, the pressure drop shows the relationship with the permeate flow rate that it increases
as the pressure drop increases, it is shown in the figure below. It means that the higher the pressure drop
that will be applied in the process the higher the efficiency to recover a pure water from the salt water
because the permeate flow rate is high.
 CH142L – Chemical Engineering Laboratory

Pressure Drop vs Permeate Flow Rate

0.40
0.35

Permeate Flow Rate, kg/s

0.30
0.25
0.20 0.03
0.15 0.04
0.10 0.05
0.05
0.00
-0.05
-0.10
30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Pressure Drop, atm

Figure 3. Pressure Drop vs Permeate Flow Rate

3.2 Effect of inlet salt mass fraction on permeate flow rate

The inlet salt mass fraction also influences permeate flow rate. Figure 4 shows the relationship
between the two wherein it shows that permeate flow rate decreases while the inlet salt mass fraction
increases. This means that the higher the inlet salt mass fraction the less of pure water recovered because
of the low permeate flow rate. This can be the evidence that the solution is more concentrated, the
difficulty also increases to separate the liquids. Therefore, the higher the concentration of salt the
permeate flow rate is low that causes the difficulty of water to flow smoothly and pass through the
membrane for the separation.

0.25

0.20
Permeat Flow Rate, kg/s

0.15

0.10

0.05

0.00
0.03 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.05 0.05 0.06
Inlet Mass Fraction

Figure 4. Inlet Salt Concentration vs Permeate Flow Rate

3.2 Effect of stirring speed on permeate flow rate

 CH142L – Chemical Engineering Laboratory

Lastly, the parameter of stirring speed also effects the permeate flow rate. As shown in Figure 5, the
permeate flow rate increases as the stirring speed increases. This means that the pure water recovery is much
efficient if the stirring speed is higher because it is resulting a high permeate flow rate.

Stirring Speed vs Permeate Flow Rate

0.40
0.35
Permeat Flow Rate, kg/s

0.30
0.25
0.20
0.15
0.10
0.05
0.00
35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85
Stirring Speed, rad/s

Figure 5. Stirring Speed vs Permeate Flow Rate

4. Conclusion

From the aided program which is Wolfram stimulator, it was shown that there are certain
conditions to have an efficient reverse osmosis process with regards with the parameters used in this
experiments and these are the pressure drop, stirring speed and inlet salt concentration. From the data
gathered, it shows that when the pressure drop increases the permeate flow rate increases that gives a
more pure water recovered from the salt water and also the same in the stirring speed that gives a high
permeate flow rate when the stirring speed increases, unlike the inlet salt concentration that have inverse
proportionality in the relationship with the permeate flow rate.
It can conclude that the used of Wolfram stimulator is a good program to determine the efficiency
of reverse osmosis with certain parameters, and it was successfully identified the effects of the parameters
in the process. It is recommended to learn for the future and apply in the industrial field since it can treat
the saltwater present in the environment.
References
[1] P-Themes. (n.d.). Everything You Need to Know About Reverse Osmosis Systems. Waterdrop. https://www.waterdropfilter.com/blogs/buyers-
guides/what-is-a-reverse-osmosis-system-and-how-does-it-work?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIv9-
u7ofd8QIVFFVgCh1BfwAgEAAYASAAEgLLifD_BwE.
[2] Reverse Osmosis (RO): Know About Its Industrial Applications - Intec America Corporation, (n.d.). https://www.intec-
america.com/blog/reverse-osmosis-ro-industrial-applications/ (accessed July 12, 2021).
[3] https://demonstrations.wolfram.com/ReverseOsmosis/#popup1