The overarching goal of this research project is to develop technologies for beneficial salinity management. Specifically, the project focuses on the energy and resources recovery from reverse osmosis (RO) desalination concentration, which can reduce the cost associated with desalination operation and minimize the environmental impact associated with the disposal of desalination concentrate. Th...

Process intensification strategy (PIS) is emerging as an interesting guideline to revolutionize process industry in terms of improved efficiency and sustainability. Membrane engineering has appeared as a strong candidate to implement PIS. The most significant progress has been observed in desalination where substantial reduction in overall energy demand, environmental footprint, and process haz...

Despite steady advances in the technology, desalination remains one of the most expensive ways to produce potable water. But as water scarcity forces communities to find new sources of drinking water, scientists are developing innovations that may soon make desalination a reasonable option for many more communities. The newest approach to desalination is membrane systems, which include reverse ...

For desalination to succeed in Texas, reliable, cost-effective, and adoptable technologies are needed. This will require scientific advances in pretreatment, characteristics of different sources of saline water, methods of salt separation, disposal of brine, effects of byproducts on the environment, and management of desalination facilities. Scientists at universities across Texas are investiga...

At low pressure and temperature, water is easily vaporized under partial vacuum pressure. Desalination of seawater as source of potable water is globally considered as an applied reliable technology. At low temperature and pressure, the heat transfer process yield is higher than any normal process. Therefore, the rate of vaporization of seawater is much higher than any usual processes. The part...

Current water desalination techniques are energy intensive and some use membranes operated at high pressures. It is shown here that water desalination can be accomplished without electrical energy input or high water pressure by using a source of organic matter as the fuel to desalinate water. A microbial fuel cell was modified by placing two membranes between the anode and cathode, creating a ...

As population and water demand increase, there is a growing need for alternative water supplies from water reuse and desalination systems. These systems are beneficial to water augmentation; however, there are concerns related to their carbon footprint. This study compiles the reported carbon footprint of these systems from existing literature, recognizes general trends of carbon footprint of w...

Fresh water is required to sustain life. However, the world is facing a global challenge to reliably supply its population with safe water due to shortages stemming from population growth, climate change, contamination of available fresh water supplies, and public policy. Presently, the United Nations estimates that one third of the world’s population ( 2.4 billion people) is living in water-st...

Large-scale desalination plants are complex systems with many inter-disciplinary interactions and different levels of subsystem hierarchy. Advanced complex systems design tools have been shown to have a positive impact on design in aerospace and automotive, but have generally not been used in the design of water systems. This work presents a multi-disciplinary design optimization approach to de...

The environmental issues of possible concern during construction and operation of desalination plants (mainly large-scale facilities) include impacts that are common to many coastal development projects (e.g. land use and aesthetic impacts), as well as specific impacts associated with the elements of the desalination system and auxiliary infrastructure. In the latter category these relate to th...