TY - JOUR
T1 - Desalination, Water Re-use, and Halophyte Cultivation in Salinized Regions
T2 - A Highly Productive Groundwater Treatment System
AU - Park, Kiho
AU - Mudgal, Anurag
AU - Mudgal, Varsha
AU - Sagi, Moshe
AU - Standing, Dominic
AU - Davies, Philip A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2023/8/15
Y1 - 2023/8/15
N2 - Groundwater salinization is a problem affecting access to water in many world regions. Though desalination by conventional reverse osmosis (RO) can upgrade groundwater quality for drinking, its disadvantages include unmanaged brine discharge and accelerated groundwater depletion. Here, we propose a new approach combining RO, forward osmosis (FO), and halophyte cultivation, in which FO optimally adjusts the concentration of the RO reject brine for irrigation of Salicornia or Sarcocornia. The FO also re-uses wastewater, thus, reducing groundwater extraction and the wastewater effluent volume. To suit different groundwater salinities in the range 1-8 g/L, three practical designs are proposed and analyzed. Results include specific groundwater consumption (SGC), specific energy consumption (SEC), wastewater volume reduction, peak RO pressure, permeate water quality, efficiency of water resource utilization, and halophyte yield. Compared to conventional brackish water RO, the results show superior performance in almost all aspects. For example, SGC is reduced from 1.25 to 0.9 m3 per m3 of drinking water output and SEC is reduced from 0.79 to 0.70 kW h/m3 by a FO-RO-FO system treating groundwater of salinity 8 g/L. This system can produce 1.1 m3 of high-quality drinking water and up to 4.9 kg of edible halophyte per m3 of groundwater withdrawn.
AB - Groundwater salinization is a problem affecting access to water in many world regions. Though desalination by conventional reverse osmosis (RO) can upgrade groundwater quality for drinking, its disadvantages include unmanaged brine discharge and accelerated groundwater depletion. Here, we propose a new approach combining RO, forward osmosis (FO), and halophyte cultivation, in which FO optimally adjusts the concentration of the RO reject brine for irrigation of Salicornia or Sarcocornia. The FO also re-uses wastewater, thus, reducing groundwater extraction and the wastewater effluent volume. To suit different groundwater salinities in the range 1-8 g/L, three practical designs are proposed and analyzed. Results include specific groundwater consumption (SGC), specific energy consumption (SEC), wastewater volume reduction, peak RO pressure, permeate water quality, efficiency of water resource utilization, and halophyte yield. Compared to conventional brackish water RO, the results show superior performance in almost all aspects. For example, SGC is reduced from 1.25 to 0.9 m3 per m3 of drinking water output and SEC is reduced from 0.79 to 0.70 kW h/m3 by a FO-RO-FO system treating groundwater of salinity 8 g/L. This system can produce 1.1 m3 of high-quality drinking water and up to 4.9 kg of edible halophyte per m3 of groundwater withdrawn.
KW - batch reverse osmosis
KW - forward osmosis
KW - groundwater
KW - halophyte cultivation
KW - process modelling
KW - zero liquid discharge
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85168223006&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1021/acs.est.3c02881
DO - 10.1021/acs.est.3c02881
M3 - Article
C2 - 37540002
AN - SCOPUS:85168223006
SN - 0013-936X
VL - 57
SP - 11863
EP - 11875
JO - Environmental Science and Technology
JF - Environmental Science and Technology
IS - 32
ER -
