Water-stressed regions are exploring more nontraditional water sources and energy
intensive technologies such as reverse osmosis (RO) to secure and augment their freshwater
supply. As RO effectively rejects most of the dissolved species and recovers approximately 50 to
80% of water depending on water source, it also generates a relatively large concentrate waste
stream. Management of concentrate streams in inland applications is the key technology hurdle
to overcome as it often requires the integration of one or more unit operations. This project proposes a solution to concentrate management through an intensified solar-energy capture desalination system that integrates membrane distillation (MD) with a hybrid concentrated solar power (CSP)/photovoltaic (PV) collector to realize self-sustained desalination of concentrate streams in inland and off-grid applications. Direct utilization of solar heat from CSP and electricity from PV for water purification enables higher energy productivity, and thus lower levelized cost of water and energy. Succesful engineering and design of the proposed system for water reuse applications would prove that the system could be used for treatment of high-salinity waste streams from other chemical and commodity process streams.
