Renewable Energy Driven Small-Scale Sea Water Reverse Osmosis Desalination Systems: A Survey

[摘要] In recent years, water and energy constitute two of the mostimportant concerns of the worldwide agenda. Нese resourcescomprise essential commodities for the preservation of life on Earthand the human survival. At the dawn of the 21st century, there aremore than 2 billion people without access to fresh water [1]. Takinginto consideration that 97% of the earth’s water comes from the oceans,an attractive solution to the lack of potable water is seawaterdesalination [2]. Нe main desalination processes are the thermal andthe membranes ones. Нe membrane processes, such as electrodialysisand primarily reverse osmosis (RO), have been implemented not onlyon desalination but generally on water treatment and now have moreglobal acceptance than thermal processes [3]. RO is a process wherethe feed water enters a semi-permeable membrane under pressure,larger than the osmotic pressure, and the membrane produces freshwater and concentrate solution [4].