• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.573-579
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• 2011

As rapid advances in technologies continue, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination systems are now more energy-efficient than conventional thermal processes. Some SWRO desalination plants can achieve the specific energy consumption (SEC) below 2 kWh/$m^3$. Along with the development of new membranes and high-performance pumps, energy recovery devices (ERD), which recover the hydraulic energy of brine, have been developed to enhance energy efficiency. In this work, we reviewed general aspects of ERD technologies and their market trends. The advantages and disadvantages of various EDR technologies were compared to explore the future directions of ERD development.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2018

Recently, interest in the development of alternative water resources has been increasing rapidly due to environmental pollution and depletion of water resources. In particular, seawater desalination has been attracting the most attention as alternative water resources. As seawater desalination consumes a large amount of energy due to high operating pressure, many researches have been conducted to improve energy efficiency such as energy recovery device (ERD). Consequently, this study aims to compare the energy efficiency of RO process according to ERD of isobaric type which is applied in scientific control pilot plant process of each $100m^3/day$ scale based on actual RO product water. As a result, it was confirmed that efficiency, mixing rate, and permeate conductivity were different depending on the size of the apparatus even though the same principle of the ERD was applied. It is believed that this is caused by the difference in cross-sectional area of the contacted portion for pressure transfer inside the ERD. Therefore, further study is needed to confirm the optimum conditions what is applicable to the actual process considering the correlation with other factors as well as the factors obtained from the previous experiments.

• 기계와재료
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.37-47
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• 2008

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.762-766
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• 2017

Energy recovery device (ERD) is used to save energy consumption in seawater reverse osmosis processes. However, small-scale ERDs (<$100m^3/d$) are hardly observed in seawater desalination market. In South Korea, most of seawater desalination plants for drinking water production are small-scaled and have been operated in island areas or on ships. Thus, the effect of ERDs for these small-scale SWRO processes should not be neglected. In this work, the small-scale SWRO processes are designed and analyzed in terms of energy consumption with/without ERD. The realistic efficiencies of high pressure pumps are considered for the energy analyses. The unit cost of electricity depending on the application place (e.g., inland and island areas, on ships) is investigated to calculate the energy cost for unit water production in various SWRO applications classified by plant capacity, application place, and the installation of ERD. As a result, the energy cost can be saved up to $1,640.4KRW/m^3$ when ERD is applied, and the saving effect increases at smaller plants on ships. In conclusion, the development of small-scale ERDs are necessary because small-scale SWRO processes are dominant in Korean seawater desalination market, and the electricity saving effect becomes higher at smaller-scaled system.