An Overview of Energy Recovery Devices in Seawater Desalination by Reverse Osmosis Method

Desalination process of seawater by reverse osmosis method, has attracted more attention in recent years, due to its high efficiency, and about 62 percent of seawater is treated by this method. In this process energy recovery devices play an important role in reducing energy consumption and process costs, because on the one hand the energy consumption of high pressure pumps for feeding reverse osmosis membrane is high, and on the other hand 40 percent of feed water is treated with membrane and 60 percent is discharged as a high-pressure waste, which releases a lot of energy. The energy recovery device converts this hydraulic energy of the effluent into mechanical energy and transfers it to the feed pump as a shaft aid or uses it independently to transfer a part of the feed. The purpose of this research is to study energy recovery devices and compare them with each other to select a suitable energy recovery system.