Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/86284
What are the options for disposal of old RO membranes? Editor's note: Where do old membranes go to die? In Australia, as in many other countries, the option for membrane disposal is landfill, which due to the materials composing membrane modules is a very unsustainable practice. A research project funded by the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination has been looking at alternatives. REVERSE OSMOSIS (RO) membranes are now widely used as core treatment process in modern desalination plants. Large facilities currently built around Australian state capitals use tens of thousands of membranes modules to produce drinking water from seawater. In addition, more than 160 Australian plants treating brackish, wastewater effluent or lower salinity streams are also based on RO technology 1 Detailed characterisation of typical RO modules indicate the large number of compounds used to . construct an RO module: While the membrane sheets account for approximately 40% of its total weight, the remaining mass is composed of the glass-fibre housing (12%), the permeate tube and ends (17%) and stream spacers (13% permeate spacer made of polyester; 9% feed spacer made of polypropylene). The remaining weight percentage is comprised of glued parts (data obtained from Dow Filmtec's LE- 440 membrane, see Figure 1). The membrane sheet is composed of the dense and thin (0.02 µm) polyamide _________ Will Lawler, Greg Leslie and Pierre Le-Clech, UNESCO Centre for Membrane Science & Technology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia ___ Figure 1: Old RO membranes (here during an autopsy) offer a large range of opportunities for their reuse and more sustainable disposal. May-June 2012 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 39 | RESEARCH