Pretreatment in Reverse Osmosis Seawater Desalination:
A Short Review

Valavala, Ramesh; Sohn, Jinsik; Han, Jihee; Her, Namguk; Yoon, Yeomin

doi:2011.16.4.205

Environmental Engineering Research 2011;16(4): 205-212. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4491/eer.2011.16.4.205

Pretreatment in Reverse Osmosis Seawater Desalination: A Short Review

Ramesh Valavala¹, Jinsik Sohn²^†, Jihee Han², Namguk Her³, and Yeomin Yoon¹

¹Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA
²Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Kookmin University, Seoul 136-702, Korea
³Department of Chemistry and Environmental Sciences, Korea Army Academy at Young-Cheon, Young-cheon 770-849, Korea

Corresponding Author: Jinsik Sohn ,Tel: +82-2-910-4528, Fax: +82-2-910-8597, Email: jinsiksohn@kookmin.ac.kr

Received: December 30, 2010; Accepted: November 23, 2011.

ABSTRACT

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has developed over the past 40 years to control a 44% market share in the world desalting production capacity and an 80% share in the total number of desalination plants installed worldwide. The application of conventional and low-pressure membrane pretreatment processes to seawater RO (SWRO) desalination has undergone accelerated development over the past decade. Reliable pretreatment techniques are required for the successful operation of SWRO processes, since a major issue is membrane fouling associated with particulate matter/colloids, organic/inorganic compounds, and biological growth. While conventional pretreatment processes such as coagulation and granular media filtration have been widely used for SWRO, there has been an increased tendency toward the use of ultrafiltration/microfiltration (UF/MF) instead of conventional treatment techniques. The literature shows that both the conventional and the UF/MF membrane pretreatment processes have different advantages and disadvantages. This review suggests that, depending on the feed water quality conditions, the suitable integration of multiple pretreatment processes may be considered valid since this would utilize the benefits of each separate pretreatment.

Keywords: Coagulation | Desalination | Low-pressure membrane | Pretreatment | Reverse osmosis