Controlling Water Quality using Reverse Osmosis: The Development of Simplified Dynamic Model

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a compact process for the removal of ionic and organic pollutants from contaminated water. This study deals with the development of dynamic model for tubular reverse osmosis unit. The proposed model describes the unit as a series of single tubes, each tube is described by two ordinary differential equations (ODE) and the whole module is to be described by sets of differential algebraic equations. The tubes are modeled and solved sequentially where the output of any tube becomes the input for the next one. The predictions of steady state and dynamic models are in good agreement with the experimental results of a lab scale RO unit. This model is simpler than the currently used distributed models; besides it gives more insight than black box models. This model can be used to improve the understanding of RO processes as well as to develop different model-based control algorithms for this process.