Application of feed flow reversal for nanofiltration of highly concentrated industrial wastewaters

• Main Authors: Tang, Di, Song, Jie, Law, Adrian Wing-Keung
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Civil engineering; Feed flow reversal; Nanofiltration; Highly concentrated wastewaters
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/154216
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study focuses on investigating feed flow reversal (FFR) for treating highly concentrated wastewaters. Literature review is performed to two sources of highly concentrated wastewaters, i.e. produced waters from shale gas extraction and feed waters at the final steps of zero liquid discharge, which FFR is likely to be effective for scaling mitigation. The desalination performance with FFR using the NF90-2540 membrane is presented for the first time in dealing with feedwaters containing total dissolved solids up to 70 g/L. The experimental results of permeate recovery and salt rejection are found to be ~5.7–47.6% and ~44.3–99.0%, respectively. A mathematical model is developed to predict the solute concentration profile and permeate flux for the FFR-incorporated NF desalination operations. Comparison between the modelling and experimental results show reasonably good agreements in most experimental cases, except those with high pressures exceeding 30 bar which might be attributed to membrane compaction. Both the laboratory investigation and mathematical model development conducted in the present study are expected to provide reference and guidance for fast FFR applications with highly concentrated industrial wastewaters in the future.