Investigation of Power Generation in Pressure Retarded Osmosis Power Plant

Power generation by Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) method is a reliable approach for future. In this method, water from feed (low-salt or clean water flow) permeates through a semi membrane into a consentrated solution or a high pressurized salinity flow, such as sea water causing additional increase in its pressure and flowrate. Then this high pressure flow passing through a water turbine causes rotation of generator shaft and generates electric power. In this paper, in addition to investigate PRO power plant performance considering working condition of Iran, a PRO model is studied to predict water flux and power density under specific teoritical conditions. Model is based on empirical estimation of membrane water permeability coefficient (A), the membrane salt permeability coefficient (B) and suspended particles in solution resistivity (K).Results show that the PRO method with optimized membrane has higher specific power and greater efficiency than previous models. So, there is a growing trend into producing power via this new approach.