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A new theoretical approach to estimate the specific energy consumption of reverse osmosis and other pressure-driven liquid-phase membrane processes

This provides for the first time explicitly, from first principles, a theoretical model of the effect of membrane properties on the specific energy consumption of pressure driven membrane processes, which in previous studies was calculated using a phenomenological but thermodynamically inconsistent equation. The model can be used to design more energy-efficient membranes by manipulating two factors; membrane permeability and membrane surface area. It also predicts total energy consumption - the combination of membrane resistance and osmotic pressure barrier – in, for example, Forward Osmosis, which is the key technology in Modern Water’s demonstration desalination plants in Oman and Gibraltar.