Desalination 391 (2016) 112125

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Desalination

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/desal

Reverse osmosis applications: Prospect and challenges

I.G. Wenten , Khoiruddin
Department of Chemical Engineering, ITB, Jl, Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia

H I G H L I G H T S

Applications of reverse osmosis (RO) membrane are reviewed.

Advantages and limitations of the applications are discussed.
Challenges and perspective are pointed out.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Reverse osmosis (RO) is a pressure driven membrane process which has been widely applied and recognized as
Received 17 October 2015 the leading technology of desalination process. Improvement in RO technology including advanced membrane
Received in revised form 15 December 2015 material, module and process design, and energy recovery has led to cost reduction which in turn gaining interest
Accepted 17 December 2015
to its commercial applications. RO is now being used in various applications including selective separation, puri-
Available online 30 December 2015
cation, and concentration processes. In food industry, RO is applied for concentration of fruits and vegetable
Keywords:
juices, pre-concentration of milk and whey, and dealcoholization of alcoholic beverage. For area which has
Desalination large source of natural humic water or peat water, RO can be applied to produce clean water for community
Water treatment water supply. RO was also investigated for organic mixture separation and CO2 regeneration from essential oil
Wastewater treatment extraction using supercritical uid. The application of RO as a nal step of wastewater treatment for water
Food processing reuse and valuable component recovery seems to be promising in wastewater reclamation. In this paper, the ap-
Organic mixture separation plications of RO, its advantages, and limitations are discussed. In addition, challenges and perspective of RO mem-
Dealcoholization branes are pointed out.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction permeant through RO membranes is controlled by diffusion known

Rapid growth in membrane technology development is primarily
based on consciousness on the potential of this technology. Membrane
processes have many advantages allowing various applications in
almost every industrial sector. The major breakthrough in the develop-
ment of membrane technology was recorded in the late 1950s, when
Sartorius Werke GmbH, Germany manufactured industrial scale
membranes and microltration membranes, for the rst time. However,
industrial application was just started ten years later, when Loeb and
Sourirajan discovered very thin membrane for reverse osmosis (RO),
the asymmetric membranes for seawater desalination.
RO system separates dissolved solutes (includes single charged
ions, such as Na+, Cl) from water via a semipermeable membrane
that passes water in preference to the solute. RO can be described
as a diffusion-controlled process in which the mass transfer of
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: igw@che.itb.ac.id (I.G. Wenten).
as solutiondiffusion mechanism. In the solutiondiffusion mecha-
nism, permeants dissolve in membrane material and then diffuse
through the membrane [1]. RO membrane is very hydrophilic; there-
fore water will be able to readily diffuse into and out of the mem-
brane polymer structure.
RO systems can be found today in a wide range of facilities: kitchens,
hospitals, reneries, power plants, pulp and paper industries, crude palm
oil milling, semiconductor manufacturing facilities, manned spacecraft,
sailboats, etc. RO is used as a concentration step particularly in food in-
dustry, galvanic industry, and dairy industry [2]. Improvement in RO
technology such as membrane material, module and process design,
pre-treatment, and energy recovery has led to cost reduction that drives
the interest in its commercial applications [3]. RO is now being used for
various applications both for purication and concentration and becomes
a leading technology for brackish and seawater desalination. In this
paper, the applications of RO are pointed out including water treatment,
wastewater treatment, food and beverage processing, organic mixture
separation, and other applications. In the last part, challenges and per-
spectives in RO process are discussed.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2015.12.011
0011-9164/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125 113

2. Water treatment
2.1. Desalination
Application of RO in desalination of various water sources to produce
drinking water, process water, and demineralized water is presented in
Table 1. The production of potable water from seawater and brackish
water sources is presently the largest application of RO. Since the end
of the 1970s, energy consumption of seawater reverse osmosis
(SWRO) has been reduced signicantly due to process improvement
[4]. Nowadays, RO membranes in desalination plants are represented
by 60% of the total number of worldwide plants [5]. Typical example
of the largest SWRO desalination plant was commissioned in 2013 in
Sorek, Israel, with production capacity of 624,000 m3/day potable
water as reported by IDE technologies [6]. The system incorporates a
16 inch RO element which is arranged in vertical and uses 100,000 m2
of land area. The energy consumption is minimized by IDE's Proprietary
3-Center Design (pumping center, membrane center and energy recov-
ery system) and double line intake. The plant is expected to produce
water with maximum energy consumption of 4 kWh/m3 and
b0.3 mg/L of boron. Every element of the plants was customized to
minimize investment costs and environmental impacts. The lower
investment cost is achieved by several strategies, such as decreasing
the number of pressure vessels, piping headers, control and instrumen-
tation equipment, and reduction of footprint.
In producing high quality water, such as high pressure boiler feed
water or ultrapure water, RO system requires more deionization process
as the polishing step to achieve complete removal of ions, silica, and
boron. Conventional ion-exchange and electrodeionization (EDI)
processes are generally used as the polishing step. Nowadays, EDI is
more preferable over conventional ion-exchange process due to its ad-
vantages which include technological and economical point of view [7].
Desalination of geothermal water using RO for water supply is also
reported in literatures [811]. Geothermal water is considered as a valu-
able water source. For this purpose, RO can be applied to treat the geo-
thermal water for high quality water production. However, according to
those reports, more treatment of RO permeate is needed to achieve
more removal of boron since the geothermal water contains a relatively
high concentration of boron.
Surface water may be contaminated with pollutants such as pesti-
cides from the irrigation system. In order to be used as the source of
drinking water, those pollutants contained in surface water should be
removed. RO not only removes dissolved solids in surface water but
also removes pollutants to meet the standard of drinking water. Low
pressure RO (LPRO) membranes have been studied by several research
on this purpose [1215]. The studies indicated the efcacy of LPRO on
removing the pesticides from water. For example, up to 99.8% removal
efciency can be achieved by using commercial RO membrane [13].
Meanwhile, in a recirculation aquaculture system (RAS), the presence
of ammonia should be controlled due to its toxicity to sh. RO mem-
brane could achieve a complete removal of ammonia and about
50.2 Lm2h1 of ux from 9.60 mg/L ammonia containing solution
at 2.45 MPa of pressure which is desirable for RAS [16].
2.2. Peat water treatment
Peat water or natural brown water is an acidic brown water
commonly found in peat land area which has high content of natural
organic matter (NOM) [23]. Meanwhile, the peat water contains a
small concentration of total dissolved solid (TDS). Due to its availability,
an appropriate peat water treatment could be a potential source of
water supply. However, peat water usage as clean water source is
inhibited by its high dissolved organic matter, especially humic acids
and humic substances. Humic substance is the major fraction of NOM
that endowed with aromatic and aliphatic characteristic which contrib-
utes to surface charge and reactivity mainly by the phenolic and
carboxyclic groups [24]. The reactions between the water clarifying
antiseptics and dissolved humic substance or phenolic molecules can
produce some carcinogenic substances, which are known as disinfec-
tant by-products (DBPs) that have negative effects on the human health
in long-term period [25]. Trihalomethanes (THMs) are formed due to
chlorination of water containing organic compounds, principally
humic and fulvic acids. The DBP formation could be reduced by mini-
mizing the number of THM precursors in water prior to chlorination
process.
Removal of humic acid from natural water has been already studied
by using membrane ltration. degaard and Koottatep [26] reported an
investigation of humic substance removal from natural water using sev-
eral RO membranes in order to remove color and haloform precursors.
Results of the study showed that the removal of humic substances
amounted to 80100% in terms of color removal for selected membrane.
In similar study, Agui et al. [27] investigated separation characteristics of
humic substances on RO membranes. They found that the rejection of
humic substances was around 75% and could be improved up to 90%
by adjusting pH level. Flux decline of RO membranes due to humic
acid fouling is a major drawback in the treatment of humic containing

Table 1
Typical example of RO application in desalination process.

Cost ($/m3) Seawater RO (SWRO) Brackish water RO (BWRO) Low-pressure RO (LPRO) ROEDI RO-DM

Feed water Seawater Brackish watera Surface waterb Well waterc Seawater
Target quality Drinking water Drinking water Drinking water Boiler feed water Boiler feed water
Fixed charge 0.311d 0.180e 0.046f 0.118g
Energy 0.134h 0.056 0.032 0.102
Chemical 0.021 0.022 0.015i 0.005
Membrane replacement 0.028 0.020 0.179 0.179
Filters 0.005
Others 0.017 0.066j 0.018 0.012
Water cost 0.525 0.344 0.129 0.53 1.56
Ref. [17,18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

DM demineralizer; EDI electrodeionization

a
Total dissolved solid (TDS): 1600 mg/L.
b
TDS: 500 mg/L.
c
TDS: 30 mg/L.
d
Capacity 330,000 m3/d.
e
Capacity 45,455 m3/d.
f
Capacity 700,000 m3/d.
g
Capacity 2880 m3/d.
h
Electrical energy b 3.9 kWh/m3 (using energy recovery device).
i
Membrane module: 16 60.
j
Operating labor and maintenance.
114 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125

water. Fouling causes signicant loss of productivity and added Table 2

operational cost thus becomes a challenge on membrane operation. As Economic evaluation of RO plant in peat water treatment (calculated by GDP Filter,
Indonesia).
a major challenge, humic acid fouling on RO was studied to overcome
this drawback [28,29]. Results of those studies indicated that ux per- Input data and assumption
formance of membrane in humic solution depended on hydrodynamic Parameter Value Unit
solution such as cross ow velocity and ux and solution composition
Capacity 80 L/s
including humic acid concentration, pH, ionic strength, and calcium 288 m3/h
concentration. In practical, cleaning using caustic solution could remove Electricity 0.06 US$/kWh
the humic foulants from membrane surface. Operating time 300 days/year
RO membranes have been used in peat water treatment to produce Operating hours 20 hours/day
Plant life 10 years
potable water in small and large scale plant as shown in Fig. 1. In small Water production 1728,000.00 m3/year
scale, RO system can be used to provide clean water for remote area for
example in forestry which only has peat water as water source. RO can Calculation
Capital cost 2,236,338.58 US$
deliver high quality water for community which has limited access to Operational cost and maintenance cost
clean water by treating the peat water. Meanwhile, a centralized peat Total electrical cost 159,840.00 US$/year
water system can be an alternative of clean water supply in a region Total maintenance cost 22,363.39 US$/year
which has large source of peat water replacing conventional treatment Total manpower cost 18,000.00 US$/year
Total membrane replacement cost 99,000.00 US$/year
that uses chlorination.
Total chemical cost 1728.00 US$/year
An economic evaluation of peat water treatment plant using RO Total operational and maintenance cost 300,931.39 US$/year
membrane with 288 m3/h capacity is summarized in Table 2. The eco- Specic water production cost 0.17 US$/m3
nomic factors to be considered are capital cost and annual cost. Capital Total depreciation cost 0.13 US$/m3
cost covers purchasing cost of equipment (intake, sand lter, screen l- Total water production cost 0.30 US$/m3

ter, RO system including cleaning and chemical injection, distribution/

transfer system, and pumps, piping, control system, and installation
cost (including contractor risk and prot), commissioning, training,
mobilization/demobilization, and project management. Meanwhile,
the annual cost is divided into operational and maintenance cost. The
operational cost includes electrical cost, manpower cost, membrane re-
placement cost, and chemical cost. Among those operational costs, total
electrical cost is the highest portion of all annual cost. The main portion
of electrical energy is consumed by high pressure pump needed to
transfer feed water toward RO membrane. Membranes are replaced as
their performance declines due to membrane fouling caused by organic
compounds while chemical cleaning cannot effectively recover its per-
formance. Actually, in the economic evaluation, the economic mem-
brane life time is assumed to be 2 years. Chemical cost was derived
from chemical injection required for membrane cleaning using the
cleaning-in-place system. Meanwhile, a maintenance cost is deter-
mined as 1% from capital cost. From the economic analysis, the produc-
tion cost of drinking water from peat water using RO membrane system
is found about 0.30 USD/m3.
3. Wastewater treatment
RO applications in wastewater treatment are listed in Table 3. Appli-
cation of RO in treating various industrial wastewater has been reported
by Walrand-Grller [30]. The wastewater samples include: a mixture of
surface rinsing water from painting industry containing rhodamine B,
surface water contaminated with different chemical components,
solution of garage cleaning water and chemical used, wastewater from
photographic industry concentrated by evaporation, leachate water,
aqueous suspension of cutting oil used to cool drilling machines (UF
pre-treated), and efuent from a pig slaughterhouse (MF pre-treated).
The study reported that RO was able to treat various industrial waste-
water with about 80% water recovery under an operating pressure of
lower than 60 bar. RO membrane exhibited very high rejection of
inorganic and organic compounds. However, a post-treatment is
required to further remove organic compounds.
The combined membrane bioreactor (MBR)RO system is consid-
ered as an attractive process for wastewater reclamation and reuse
e.g. municipal wastewater, textile wastewater, thin-lm transistor liq-
uid crystal display manufacturing wastewater, and semiconductor
wastewater [3135]. Xiao et al. [31] investigated the feasibility of the
combined MBRRO technology for semiconductor wastewater treat-
ment. RO membrane autopsy analysis showed that the dominant
foulants were loose inorganic deposits (including BaSO4 and deposits
of calcium, magnesium, silica, aluminum, Fe, and Zn) while biofouling
and organic fouling were negligible. Chemical cleaning using
HClNaOH/EDTA was proved to be effective on removing the foulants
and effectively recovering membrane permeability to the fresh one.

Fig. 1. RO system applied in peat water treatment: (A) small scale mobile ultra-low pressure RO (ULPRO) unit and (B) large scale ULPRO system (Courtesy of GDP Filter, Indonesia:
gdplter.co.id).
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
Table 3
Applications of RO in wastewater treatment.
Wastewater Target of treatment
Municipal sewage efuent Make-up water for high pressure steam production
Municipal wastewater Water reclamation
Municipal wastewater Potable water production
Municipal wastewater Drinking water production
Dumpsite leachate Zero discharge
Landll leachate Purication, discharge
Electroplating wastewater Purication, discharge
Sugary wastewater Sugar recovery
Wastewater of dairy industry Water reuse
Tannery wastewater Water reuse
Olive mill wastewater Water reuse
lmh lm2.h1; MF microltration; NF nanoltration; UF ultraltration.
Choi and Chung [36] used advanced oxidation process (AOP) as post-
treatment for MBRRO system in treatment of semiconductor wastewa-
ter. Pilot scale study of RO and AOP exhibited satisfactory result of
wastewater recovery and fulll the ultrapure water quality standard.
In the textile wastewater, RO enables the reuse of water for dyeing
processes [37]. Since MBR could not remove residual color and salts,
RO treatment was required. The combined MBRRO system could
treat the wastewater with consistent reduction of the color and other
parameters to within drinking water specication.
In municipal wastewater treatment, RO plays an important role in
removing dissolved solids and harmful contaminants. The use of RO as
a polishing step of secondary or tertiary waste water efuent allows to
reclaim water for direct consumption. An autopsy analysis of RO mem-
brane used in full scale municipal wastewater treatment was reported
by Tang et al. [49]. According to their analysis, organic pollutant is the
major problem for RO membrane with about 75% portion of deposits
found. Hydrophobic acid was recommended as a key factor for
predicting the fouling of RO membrane since it was the largest fraction
in the deposit. Furthermore, Fe, Ca, and Si were the major inorganic
elements found in the deposit, and Fe element was found as the major
deposit due to its easy deposition.
Chung et al. reported a feasibility study of combined ROferrite pro-
cess for reclamation of plating wastewater and recovery of heavy metals
[50]. The RO membrane was used in simultaneous purication and con-
centration of wastewater containing zinc and chromium ions. Mean-
while, the ferrite reaction was used to recover zinc ions from RO
concentrate. A pilot-scale RO tests showed that the zinc plating waste-
water treated by one pass RO and chrome plating wastewater treated
by two pass RO met the quality required for pre-plating rinse water.
Furthermore, more than 99% zinc ions were recovered in the second
stage of RO concentrate in the form of zinc ferrite while the signicant
chromium ions were retained in the concentrates.
Hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation activities pose serious en-
vironmental problem due to toxic contaminants in produced water.
Most of the contaminants include: dispersed oil, organic and inorganic
contaminants, treatment chemical (from oil production process such
as: emulsion breaker, corrosion and scaling inhibitor, and coagulant),
produced solids, bacteria, metal and naturally occurring radioactive ma-
terial (NROM) [51]. Produced water is usually managed by several ways
such as reinjection, reuse, and discharge. Generally, there are four treat-
ment categories that can be chosen to treat produced water namely
physical, chemical, biological and membrane-based treatment [51].
Membrane-based methods (for example: pressure driven membrane
including MF, UF, NF, and RO) have demonstrated high effectiveness
115
Remarks Ref.
RO combined with ion-exchange process [38]
Integrated MFRO system [39]
Pre-treatment required: fast mixing, coagulation, occulation and sedimentation [40]
using Fe III, cationic polyelectrolyte and a sanitizing agent
Integrated MFROUV system. Chlorine is dosed before and after the MF to control [41]
biofouling.
Integrated RONFcrystallizationhigh pressure RO system. A 97% water recovery [42]
and ~8.3 kWh/m3 permeate energy consumption.
High pressure RO (120 bar) and NF in combination with a controlled crystallization [43]
process. Permeate recovery rates of more than 95%.
Pre-treatment: cartridge depth ltration, pH adjustment and UF. Initial copper [44]
concentration of 340 mg/L was reduced to 4 mg/L.
Combined ROEDI system. A more than 99% rejection of sugar on RO membrane. [45]
A 95% water recovery. [46]
Integrated microlterUFRO system. Flux of RO is 40 lmh at 30 bar. More than [47]
98% rejection of salts and COD rejection.
CentrifugeUFRO system. COD removal: ~96%; conductivity removal: ~95%; [48]
permeate ux: ~13 lmh
in produced water management which attributed to the ability on re-
moving various pollutants compared to the other methods.
In produced water treatment, RO membranes were employed for re-
moving total dissolved solids (TDS) and organics. RO is an efcient tech-
nology to remove organic molecules particularly for low molecular
weight of organic compounds from water due to its characteristics.
Mnif et al. [52] have investigated parameters affecting RO performance
during removal of phenol from water. It was found that RO performance
depended on phenol concentration in feed water, ionic strength, trans-
membrane pressure, and recovery. Li et al. [53] conducted an investiga-
tion of fouling mechanisms and primary foulant constituents in RO
membrane reclamation of a petrochemical secondary efuent. They
found that irreversible fouling was most likely caused by the residual or-
ganic foulants including phenol, methylphenol, benzeneacetic acid,
dibutyl phthalate, and xylenol.
Produced water contains a variety of salt components with a wide
range of concentrations. For produced water with elevated salinity, re-
moval of this salinity is crucial to avoid serious impact on environment
wherein it disposed. In addition, the removal of high inorganic contam-
inants through tertiary treatment using RO membranes would enable
the reuse of produced water [5456]. Produced water from oil produc-
tion site usually contains high concentration of heavy metal. The con-
centration of heavy metals in produced water is often higher than in
seawater where dilution of soluble metals is very rapid. Fe is a major
component together with other minor components such as Pb, Co, Cu,
Mn, Ni, and Zn. High heavy metal concentration is toxic and can lead
to serious environmental problem i.e. bio-accumulation hence it needs
to be treated prior to discharge. These various heavy metals could also
be removed by applying RO membranes.
NF and RO are typical membrane processes that have been applied
for removal of total dissolved solid from produced water. Mondal and
Wickramasinghe [57] studied produced water treatment using NF and
RO membranes. An NF90 (NF type membrane) exhibited the removal
of TOC (initial concentration = 136 mg/L) and TDS (initial concentra-
tion = 2090 mg/L) for about 28% and 36%, respectively. Meanwhile,
the BW30 type of RO membrane could remove about 93% of salt concen-
tration from produced water in low pressure operating conditions (to
7 bar). RO membrane is also able to remove TDS up to 99% and organics
(toluene) 99.5% using MFI-type zeolite as reported by Liu et al. [58].
Hybrid RO-constructed wetland has been reported as an effective pro-
cess for treatment produced water aiming to reuse or to be disposed
[59]. The wetland post-treatment improved the removal of soluble
toxic components which may not be removed by RO. Hence, the hybrid
process could treat produced water for irrigation.
116 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125

Despite the ability of RO membranes in handling the complex con-
tents of produced water, the investigations were conducted in bench
and pilot scale [60]. Therefore, further development of RO on commer-
cial scale applications is required. In addition, fouling and scaling are
still the main problems on this application resulting in the ux decay.
RO performance in wastewater treatment is determined to very large
extent by pre-treatment, membrane with high resistance to fouling,
permeate ux, recovery and control of fouling and scaling on membrane
[61]. Integrated membrane pre-treatment combined with chlorination
has been proved as an appropriate strategy to control fouling on RO
membrane. Hydrophilization of membrane surface is also able to
mitigate membrane fouling. In addition, permeate ux of membrane
determines the periodical cleaning required for RO membrane mainte-
nance. In the case of produced water treatment, Xu and Drewes found
that chemical cleaning using caustic or anionic surfactant solution
could restore the membrane ux more efcient than hydraulic cleaning
or using acids and metal chelating agents, and more effective for hydro-
philic membrane [62].
4. Food and beverage processing
4.1. Juice concentration
The potential applications of RO membrane as the concentration
technique for increasing concentration of fruit juice by reducing water
content have been of interest since more than 40 years due to its advan-
tages over conventional thermal based processes. Since RO is operated
at low temperature condition, RO membranes offer the following
features: (i) damage of thermal sensitive component could be avoided,
(ii) low energy consumption, and (iii) lower investment cost [63]. In
addition, RO membranes are able to retain avor which is favorable in
production of fruit juice with high quality [63,64]. In addition, a report
also indicates that RO is a potential technique to improve antioxidant
properties of fruit juice concentrate which suggest the applicability of
RO for enhancing health promoting juice [65].
Early studies on RO applications for various fruit juice concentrations
(such as orange, apple, pear, grape, and tomato juices) have been
conducted to evaluate the performance of RO and factors affecting the
process [6671]. From those early studies it can be summarized that
RO membrane can retain the aromatic compounds of the fruit juice,
polyamide membranes exhibit the higher ux and rejection of avor
and other components, and membrane performance was affected by
operating conditions and membrane module conguration.
Application of RO for sugar juice pre-concentration has been
evaluated in terms of energy consumption [72]. The energy consump-
tion of the ROevaporator system was calculated and compared to a
conventional evaporator. It was found that the ROevaporator system
could save about 33% energy consumption compared to the convention-
al evaporator. The RO was able to concentrate the sugar juice up to
20 Brix with negligible sugar loss at two stage membrane arrangement.
Performances of RO membrane during concentration of various juices
are presented in Table 4.
Despite the excellent performance, RO applications on juice concen-
tration have some limitations. Those limitations are fouling phenome-
non, high pressures required, inactivation of enzyme pre-treatment is
needed, juice concentration limited by osmotic pressure, and high cost
of membrane replacement [63]. Therefore, further development is
needed to improve RO performance in concentrating of fruit juice,
especially by improving membrane characteristics which include high
ux, membrane selectivity, and fouling resistivity.
4.2. Dairy industry
Membrane processes have been widely applied in dairy industries.
The applications of membrane in the dairy industry includes: alterna-
tives to conventional processes such as centrifugation and evaporation,
as means in resolving the separation issues such as defatting of whey,
protein recovery and separation, creating dairy new products, standard-
ization of milk products using milk UF permeate, and on-farm UF for the
reduction of milk transportation costs [81]. In dairy industries, RO has
potential to be applied in concentrating process of milk and whey.
Milk could be concentrated by removing about 70% water content with-
out undergoing thermal processes while the valuable components are
retained [82,83]. In addition, due to low temperature operation, the
nutritive component damage during the operation could be avoided.
Pre-concentration of milk prior to transportation may reduce the trans-
portation cost [84]. The concentrated milks and skim milks were used
for various products such as cheddar cheese, yoghurt manufacturing,
dried milk, dried skim milk, and butter, with good quality [8588].
An early study of RO application for concentrating of dairy liquids
has been conducted by Hiddink et al. [89]. They found that compositions
of feed and operating conditions signicantly affect the membrane ux
while the limiting factors of ux were osmotic pressure and fouling
phenomenon. In Gouda whey processing, the fouling phenomenon
occurred due to Ca-phosphate precipitation. Meanwhile, the foulant
during the processing of skim milk, desalted whey, and acid whey is
protein. According to their study, some fouling control strategies could
be applied during dairy liquid processing. Fouling at Gouda whey pro-
cessing could be mitigated by decreasing the pH value of decalcifying
the whey. Furthermore, a proper ow velocity could decrease the
mass transfer resistance due to fouling and polarization concentration.
In the dairy industry, long-term fouling on RO membranes occurs due

Table 4
Performance of RO membrane in juice concentration.

Juice Initial concentration Membrane Operating conditions Results Ref.

Onion juice 10 Brix Tubular PA membrane P = 55 bar 18 Brix [73]

T = 35 C Flux = 19.25 lmh
Apple juice 11 Brix Tubular PA membrane P = 5.5 bar 26 Brix [74]
T = 40 C
Carrot juice 5Brix Spiral wound PA P = 25 bar 13.6Brix [75]
T = 20 C
Acerola juice 7.1 Brix Plate-and-frame thin lm composite P = 60 bar 29.2 Brix [76]
T = 25 C
Camu-camu juice 6 Brix Plate-and-frame thin lm composite P = 60 bar 25.5 Brix [77]
T = 22 C
Orange juice 8 Brix Plate-and-frame PA membrane P = 60 bar 36 Brix [64]
T = 25 C Flux = 28 lmh
Blackcurrant juice 16.5 Brix Tubular PA membrane P = 60 bar 28.6 Brix [78]
T = 25 C
Grape juice 14.7 Brix Plate-and-frame thin lm composite P = 60 bar 28.2 Brix [79]
T = 40 C
Peach juice 10.9 Brix PA membrane (pilot plant) P = 40 bar 30.5 [80]
Pear juice 11.9 Brix T = 2527 C 28.9
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125 117

to an increasing thickness of the protein gel layer and deposition of cal-
cium phosphate/protein complexes [90]. Generally, chemical cleaning is
applied to remove foulant on membrane surface. Chemical cleaning
using HCl (0.05 wt.%) resulted in maximum ux recovery and complete
resistance removal of membrane used in whey concentration [91]. A
more comprehensive review of membrane cleaning in dairy applica-
tions can be found elsewhere [92].
Syrios et al. reported the comparison of UF, NF, and RO processes for
concentrating of skim milk prior to drying [93]. The work was aimed to
investigate the effect of milk concentration by those processes on the
heat stability of recombined skim milk powders to establish whether a
heat-stable skim milk powder can be produced by utilizing one of
these processes without incorporating fore-warming. In RO process,
milk was preheated to 50 C prior to RO at a 50 bar outlet pressure.
They found that RO yielded in maximum retention of calcium in powder
and reduction in pH of the retentate and its reconstituted powder.
Moreover, the heat stability of RO product was poor.
Some works also indicate that NF and RO membranes are able to
simultaneously concentrate the milk constituents in non-food applica-
tions and to produce treated water that can be reused in the dairy
factory [94,95]. A single membrane operation is possible for milk con-
centration with excellent component retention [94]. Furthermore,
water permeate of RO process could be reused by employing addition-
al polishing steps such as RO or other treatment processes [94].
Frappart et al. reported the comparison of vibratory and rotating disk
modules of RO for treating diluted skim milk [96]. Results of the
study show the potential of high shear dynamic ltration in RO for
treating the wastewater containing milk due to minimization of
concentration polarization, higher permeate uxes, and better solute
rejection than with cross-ow ltration modules. In addition, the RO
permeate could be reused without NF pre-treatment step. Surez
et al. reported a pilot plant study on ultra-high temperature (UHT)
condensate recovery using RO membrane [97]. The UHT ash cooler
condensates were obtained in the dairy industry and were processed
in situ using a commercial RO membrane. They found that RO could
be combined with activated carbon to fulll boiler water requirement.
The activated carbon exhibited the effectiveness of organic load reduc-
tion which was suitable as a post-treatment following to RO. The fur-
ther study estimated that for 20 m3/h capacity, the investment of
installation will return within 2.2 years [98].
In dairy industry, cheese whey is considered as a by-product with
high pollutant capacity. To control environmental pollution due to
whey discharges, water recovery and whey powder recovery can be
an alternative strategy. Aydiner et al. investigated the techno-
economic of water recovery and whey powder production from whey
using UF/RO and FO/RO integrated membrane systems [99]. They re-
ported that FO/RO system could be an interesting process with the
highest water recovery of 77.4%, the whey powder production of
98,874 entity/year, and net present value of $12,347,000 and also 0.8
years payback lower than UF/RO.
4.3. Dealcoholization of fermented beverage
Due to its characteristic of selective-permeable to low molecular
weight component and ability to retain high molecules under low
operating temperature, RO exhibits the promising alternative for
dealcoholization replacing the thermal-based processes. The low mole-
cules, ethanol and water, permeate across the membrane by employing
an operating pressure required to exceed osmotic pressure. Meanwhile,
retained constituents especially avors preserve the taste and nutritive
content of the product. The advantages of RO over traditional distillation
are reduction in energy consumption, high quality of dealcoholized
product (similar quality to standard beer), and low damage to temper-
ature sensitive compounds (chemical alteration and physical losses) as
the process is carried out at low temperatures and it does not involve
phase change for alcohol removal [100].
Ethanol removal from fermented beverage such as beer, wine, and
cider using RO has been reported by several studies which are summa-
rized in Table 5 [101105]. Results of those studies showed that RO can
produce dealcoholized beverage without altering their avor and quality.
Dealcoholization of homemade beverages containing different concentra-
tions of alcohol (5.5 to 7.1%) was conducted using renew the spiral-
wound RO system under a 3550 bar operating pressure [103]. Results
of the study showed that the RO is not feasible for reducing the alcoholic
content under 0.45%. Reduction of original extract and carbohydrate con-
tents was observed when the system was operated below 45 bar. They
also recommended dilution on initial alcoholic solution to keep the levels
of carbohydrate content, extract percentage, and salts in an acceptable
range. Furthermore, considerable solute ux decline due to fouling phe-
nomena was found for the original beverage with higher pH.
Catarino and co-wokers [100,106] investigated the performance of RO
system during dealcoholization of beer using different membrane mate-
rials at various operating conditions. Several cellulose acetate and poly-
amide membranes were compared. They found that cellulose acetate
membrane exhibited the highest permeate ux and the lowest rejection
of ethanol. RO process was proved to be effective for removing ethanol
content from beer to below 0.5%v/v with high aroma content under a
low operating temperature. Meanwhile, the lowest ethanol rejection
was 3.6% at 20 bar of operating pressure, 5 C of temperature, and 7 L/
min of feed ow rate. Comparison of RO materials was also conducted

Table 5
Performance of RO in dealcoholization.

Membrane Beverage Operating conditions Ref.

Operation C0 P T Qf Cp RE Cf

Renew spiral wound membrane, no available Home-made alcoholic beverage Continuous 5.5 35 0 0.34 0.5 [103]
information of the material 5.5 40 0 0.34 0.6
5.5 45 0 0.34 0.5
5.5 50 0 0.34 0.5
Cellulose acetate, DSS-CA995P, Alfa Laval Beer Dialtration, 180 min 5.49 40 5 7.22 2.03 63.0 [106]
5.45 40 10 1.96 3.84 29.5
5.47 40 20 7.22 2.29 58.1
5.40 20 6 7.22 2.16 60
Dialtration, 120 min. 5.28 20 5 7.0 5.09 3.6 [100]
5.27 30 5 7.0 4.87 7.59
5.28 40 5 7.0 4.72 10.61
5.26 40 10 7.0 4.81 8.56
5.28 40 15 7.0 4.88 7.58
5.25 40 20 7.0 4.92 6.29
Cellulose acetate, CA995PE Red wine Semi-continuous, 150 min 12 16 30 2 11.6 2.5 8.4 [104]
Osmonics SE With model wine Batch 12 29 15 36 [107]

Note: C0 initial concentration of alcohol (%v/v); Cf alcohol concentration in nal product (%v/v); Cp alcohol concentration in permeate (%v/v); P feed pressure (bar); Qf feed ow
rate (L/min); RE ethanol rejection (%); T temperature (C).
118 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
by Lo'pez et al. on apple cider [102]. The high rejection of polyamide
membranes was considered as the effect of hydrophobicity. Moreover,
the study also investigated the effect of membrane system congura-
tions: batch and dialtration on the efcacy of dealcoholization. In the
batch mode, the feed solution in tank was circulated to achieve a desired
volume concentration ratio so the volume of the feed decreased.
Meanwhile, in dialtration mode, solution volume in the feed tank
was maintained by adding water until the desired concentration of alco-
hol was achieved. Results of the study showed that dialtration is recom-
mended over batch operation since the higher removal of ethanol and
the higher rejection of desirable aroma compounds could be obtained.
5. Organic mixture separation
Even though RO membranes are primarily fabricated and designed for
desalination, the materials are considered as selective and chemically re-
sistant in the case of organic solvent [108]. The characteristics drive the
applications of RO for treatment of solvent-contaminated wastewater.
Some applications of RO on organic mixture separation have been report-
ed in literatures. The typical examples are summarized in Table 6. An
early study has reported the applicability of RO membrane for separation
of organic mixture solution [109]. The binary mixtures used in the study
were alcohols and/or hydrocarbons including azeotropic and isomeric
mixtures. Results of the study showed that porous cellulose acetate
(CA) membrane used was sufciently good for the separation of alco-
holhydrocarbon mixture containing about 25 mol% of alcohol. However,
hydrocarbons tend to collapse the porous structure of the CA membrane
thus a further development of membrane materials is needed. Mean-
while Fang et al. [110] reported the investigation of RO applications in
separation of organic mixture solution using CA and polyamide mem-
brane (PA). The results indicated that PA membrane provides the higher
selectivity than CA membrane. During the separation, the components
with smaller Stokes' radius tend to be enriched in permeate stream.
Koops et al. [111] prepared the asymmetric cellulose acetate mem-
brane with 85.5% NaCl rejection and used to separate linear hydrocar-
bon and carboxylic acids such as, hexadecane, eicosane, tetracosane,
and stearic acid from ethanol and hexane solutions. Results of the
study indicated that ethanol has higher ux, up to three fold, than the
hexane. Solute rejection of linear rejection and carboxylic acids was
about 6090% in ethanol solvent.
Recently, membrane ltration is coupled with supercritical CO2 ex-
traction for obtaining organic substances. Several studies have been con-
ducted to investigate the applicability of combined RO-supercritical CO2
extraction for the extraction of essential oil while simultaneously regen-
erated the CO2. Sarmento et al. [112] investigated the performance of RO
in CO2 and essential oil (lemongrass, orange and nutmeg essential oils)
separation using three commercial membranes supplied by Osmonics
at 120 bar and 40 C. They found that the best retention, up to 90%,
was obtained using SG membrane (thin-lm membrane) with
8.75 kgh1m2 CO2 ux. Rezzadori et al. [113] studied the application
Table 6
Typical example of RO applications in organic mixture separation.
Mixture Membrane
EtOH/cyclohexane CA
n-BuOH/cyclohexane CA
Benzene/toluene CA
p-Xylene/benzene CA
n-BuOH/iso-BuOH CA
m-xylene/o-xylene CA
EtOH/1-hexanol PA
EtOH/p-xylene PA
n-heptane/p-xylene PA
EtOH/n-heptane PA
Linear hydrocarbon/EtOH and carboxylic acids/EtOH CA
Linear hydrocarbon/hexane CA
BuOH buthanol; EtOH ethanol; CA cellulose acetate membrane; PA polyamide membrane; Cf mole fraction in feed; P pressure (bar); R rejection (%); S selectivity.
of NF and RO membranes in combination with supercritical CO2 extrac-
tion for macauba oil extraction. They found that the hydrophobicity of
the studied membranes was increased after CO2 exposure in both sub-
and supercritical conditions which results in increasing CO2 ux. The PA
thin lm composite RO membrane exhibited high rejection of oil about
95.5%. The combined process was also investigated for fatty acid fraction-
ation. Results showed that the combined process was also technically
feasible for fatty acid fractionation.
Despite those features, the study on organic mixture separation is
now hardly found. This may be due to insufcient resistance of the
membrane to hydrocarbon compounds as reported in literature [109].
Commercial RO membrane is normally operated for an aqueous solu-
tion which also indicates that the membrane has low stability in non-
aqueous solvent [114]. Furthermore, solvent resistant nanoltration
[115] is more interesting in the eld of separation of component from
organic solvent.
6. Other applications
Due to its characteristics of highly hydrophilic, RO membranes have
been also applied for other purposes. Recently, the possibility to use
thin lm composite (TFC) PA membranes for simultaneous removal of
carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulde from agro-biogas has been studied
[116]. The membrane was employed in its water-swollen state. The
separation occurs owing to higher solubility of sour gases in water
compared to methane. Results showed that the water-swollen TFC was
able to remove carbon dioxide and SO2 up to 82 and 77 vol.%,
respectively at 220 kPa. The SO2 permeation was higher than CO2. More-
over, the good permselectivities were obtained when the feed stream
contains N85% relative humidity. The advantage of the proposed process
is no pre-treatment required for water vapor removal as encountered in
glassy polymer membranes which often lose performance during
plasticization by water vapor.
Since RO membrane has ability in rejecting most of solute in water
solution, RO provides the possibility to concentrate component from
aqueous solutions. For example, Li et al. [117] investigated an integrated
RO-membrane crystallization system for recovery of Na2SO4 from an
aqueous solution. The Na2SO4 could be a product of absorbed SO2 gas
which was removed from ue gases and was reacted with NaOH solu-
tion (as the absorbent). The integrated process was able to recover
Na2SO410H2O crystals, with b150 g/L initial concentration and a
30 bar operating pressure as the optimal condition. About 95.9% of
Na2SO4 could be recovered from 1 kg/s feed stream (60 g/L Na2SO4)
using 1836.96 m2 of membrane crystallization. Moreover, the use of
RO minimizes the total membrane area.
Ahsan et al. [118] conducted a study for recovering and concentrat-
ing sugars and acetic acid from prehydrolysis liquor of the kraft-based
dissolving pulp process prior to the fermentation of hemicellulosic
sugars by integrated activated carbon, NF, and RO. In the rst step, acti-
vated carbon was used as pre-treatment to adsorb fouling components
Component enriched in permeate Remarks Ref.
EtOH S = 3.55; P = ~70 [109]
n-BuOH S = 5.74; P = ~70
Benzene S = 1.14; P = ~70
xylene S = 1.25; P = ~70
n-BuOH S = 1.30; P = ~70
m-xyelene S = 1.30; P = ~70
EtOH S = ~1.70; P = ~34.5; Cf = 0.3 [110]
EtOH S = ~1.50; P = ~34.5; Cf = 0.4
Heptane S = ~1.25; P = ~34.5; Cf = 0.4
EtOH S = ~2.25; P = ~34.5; Cf = 0.4
EtOH R = 6090; P = 440 [111]
Hexane R = 4060; P = 440
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
such as lignin. Subsequently, the treated liquor passed through NF to re-
tain sugars. In the nal step, RO was used to concentrate the acetic acid.
Results of the study showed that the sugars were concentrated from 48
to 227 g/L by NF under a volume reduction ratio of 5, pH 4.3, and 500 psi.
RO increased the concentration of acetic acid from 10 g/L to 50 g/L under
the similar pH and pressure of NF.
In concentrating process, RO membranes were also applied in treat-
ment of biogas slurry [119,120]. An integrated sand lter/MF/UF/RO
process was used for concentrating biogas slurry to recover fertilizer
and water [119]. The pilot test results showed that RO membrane was
able to concentrate the biogas slurry up to 5 concentrating factors and
removed more than 97% of COD and NH3-N. In the biogas slurry
concentration, RO faced a problem of fouling including organic and inor-
ganic. They found an optimal strategy for combating those fouling by
using a combination of chemical agent of NaOH + sodium dodecyl
sulfate + sodium tripolyphosphate in the rst step then HCl solution
in the last step.
7. Challenges and perspective
RO has immense possibilities over a range of applications not only
for seawater and brackish water desalination but also for selective sep-
aration, purication and concentration. In food industry, RO has been
applied for concentration of heat sensitive product and dealcoholization
of alcoholic beverage. For area which has a large source of natural humic
water or peat water, RO has been applied to produce clean water from
peat water as community water supply. RO has also been investigated
for organic/organic mixture separation and CO2 regeneration from essen-
tial oil extraction using supercritical uid. The application of RO as a nal
step of wastewater treatment to target water reuse and valuable compo-
nent recovery such as metals seems to be promising in wastewater recla-
mation. In addition, more other applications are being investigated to
employ the characteristics of RO membrane e.g. its hydrophilicity for se-
lective separation and concentration. In spite of the potential and advan-
tages of membrane based processes, they have some limitations such as:
low permeation ux, inadequate selectivity, inadequate membrane dura-
bility, membrane fouling, and high equipment and operating cost that
render the process uneconomic [121]. Most of these limitations are not
Fig. 2. Non-modular UF membranes (UF module: 24, 6.5 m, capacity: 80 m3/h, 80% recovery).
Courtesy of GDP Filter, Indonesia, gdplter.co.id.
119
only due to membrane characteristics, but also the hydrodynamic within
the membrane module, such as for permeation ux and fouling [122].
7.1. Non-modular UF membrane
In seawater desalination processes, RO faces the problems of fouling,
the reject brine disposal, and boron removal [123]. Notably, fouling is
the most signicant hurdle in membrane application, which inuences
capital investment and operating and maintenance costs [124]. Fouling
inuences capital investment which attributed with the need of addi-
tional pre-treatment units, energy, material, and chemicals required to
overcome the fouling [125]. This fouling phenomenon also contributes
to the increase of mass transfer resistance that leads to the increase of
trans-membrane pressure to maintain constant ux thus increases the
energy consumption. Moreover, the operational cost is also increased
due to chemical cleaning required for foulants removal. Due to its
major impact on process efciency and economics, strategies in fouling
mitigation have been proposed by many studies. Those methods can be
classied as three categories, namely fouling control, pre-treatment
technologies, and anti-fouling membranes and modules [126].
Generally, proper pre-treatment which produces high-quality feed
water for RO can ensure the long-term stability of the membrane
system. Microltration (MF)/UF techniques have been progressively
used to reduce fouling of RO membranes instead of conventional pre-
treatment [126]. UF is the most competitive pre-treatment, especially
for high fouling feed water source such as surface water, wastewater,
or an open-intake seawater. The important features of UF pre-
treatment are continuous and easily automated operation, no break-
through as occurs in granular media ltration, good downstream pro-
tection of RO membranes, no addition of chemicals, simple chemical
shock disinfection treatment, and compact design of pre-treatment
equipment. However, the similar problem of complexity and many in-
terconnections required will be faced especially when it is constructed
in large scale plant. Therefore, an emerging non-modular concept of
UF membrane will be an effective solution for the large scale RO
pre-treatment [127]. A non-modular UF can produce high capacity of
water in a single vessel (see Fig. 2). Due to the simple piping and con-
nection with single pumping for operation and backwashing, the non-
120 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
modular UF requires smaller footprint and less connection and piping
thus reducing the capital cost.
7.2. Novel cleaning processes
In the case of inorganic fouling or scaling, pre-treatment step such as
pH adjustment, ion exchange, and UF/NF may reduce scaling on RO
membrane [128]. Nevertheless, chemical cleaning is inevitable. It
should be noted that chemical cleaning may affect membrane lifetime.
Pomerantz et al. proposed a ow reversal to prevent scaling formation
[129]. The ow reversal is applied by changing the entrance and exit
of the pressurized feed before precipitation occurs. Reversing the ow
before the induction time of the system is reached replaces the super-
saturated brine at the exit with the unsaturated feed ow which is
called as zeroes the elapsed nucleation time. The concept has been
proved in a small pilot unit. Recently, a new method of RO cleaning is in-
troduced which is called as osmotic backwash [130,131]. Osmotic
backwash is based on water back ow from the permeate side to the
feed side driven by osmotic force difference between both sides. The os-
motic backwash is possible by increasing feed concentration to increase
osmotic pressure in the feed side above the operating pressure differ-
ence, by reducing applied feed pressure below osmotic pressure differ-
ence, or by increasing permeate pressure to level that allows back ow
[131]. Osmotic backwash is considered as an appropriate cleaning
method for diluting concentration polarization layer on membrane sur-
face without the need of chemical agent. However, the method is still in
initial stage of development and needs further investigation for practical
applications. It is expected that improvement of RO operation can be
achieved by using the strategies on fouling mitigation which contributes
in enhancing and prolonging RO operation without deteriorating
product quality, increasing energy consumption, increasing chemical
consumption, or increasing membrane cost.
7.3. Membrane materials
Membrane modication is also effective in reducing the fouling ten-
dencies of RO membrane by tailoring surface hydrophilicity, roughness,
zeta potential, and functional groups [132]. However, more develop-
ments are needed to tackle the problems associated with the membrane
modications including trade-off effect between anti-fouling properties
and ux, stability of the modied layer, and complexities of the modi-
cation method [132].
The advent of improved novel materials such as nano-structured
materials will signicantly increase the performance and efciency of
RO system. The goals include decreasing energy cost and membrane
area required, simplifying pre-treatment processes, reducing mem-
brane maintenance costs, achieving single pass RO desalination, and in-
creasing plant capacity [3]. In spite of the promise of nano-structure
materials, many problems are yet to be overcome e.g. high cost of mate-
rials, difculty in scaling-up, and issues of health and safety in using
nano-materials [3]. Therefore, researchers are still in search of the
most optimal options to obtain material with sufcient selectivity and
permeability with reasonable cost.
Nowadays, there is growing activities in developing RO membrane
from inorganic materials such as ceramic membrane due to their ther-
mal, mechanical, and chemical properties. Some experimental studies
reported the use of zeolite membrane for RO process in various applica-
tions. A molecular simulation on the separation of aqueous solution
using zeolite membrane showed the promise of the material for RO pro-
cess in desalination [133]. RO desalination using -alumina supported
MFI-type zeolite membranes showed a 76.7% rejection of Na+ with
0.112 kgm2h 1 of water ux for 0.1 M NaCl solution which was
operated under 2.07 MPa of operating pressure [134]. Further study
on removal mechanism in RO zeolite membrane revealed that charge
density, size, and apparent dynamic hydration numbers of ions and its
mobility signicantly affect ion diffusion and water permeation through
zeolite membrane [135]. Meanwhile, from material point of view, alumi-
num content of zeolite membrane was reported to play an important role
in determining the separation performance including ion rejection and
water permeability which were associated with surface charge and hy-
drophilicity [136]. Zeolite membrane was also used in produced water
treatment which suggests its applicability in ions and organic removal
from produced water [56,58]. In addition, a zeolite membrane was also
reported in separation of ethanol/water mixture with about 44% rejection
of ethanol (at 1.5 MPa) [137]. Beneting from its properties e.g. thermal
and chemical stabilities, zeolite membrane could be alternative for poly-
meric membrane in treating various kinds of water and wastewater that
is hardly to be handled by polymeric membrane [138]. The properties
may also allow the application of zeolite membrane for separation of
organic mixture and solve the problem which is faced by polymeric RO
membrane indicated previously. More detail development of RO mem-
brane materials could be found elsewhere [3,139].
7.4. Boron removal
Boron removal gives another challenge for RO membrane in desalina-
tion process to meet the requirement of fresh water quality. Boron pre-
sents in seawater at average concentration of 4.6 mg/L [140]. According
to WHO regulation, the maximum concentration of boron in drinking
water is 0.5 mg/L [141]. Recently, the guideline has been revised from
0.5 to 2.4 mg/L in 2011 due to the lack of toxicity data to human [142].
To obtain more than 90% boron removal is typically hard to be achieved
by RO membrane [143]. System design is one of alternative solutions to
improve the boron rejection. Typically, the RO system is operated under
neutral pH which is considerably ineffective for removing boron. Boron
rejection of more than 99% could be achieved at higher pH [144]. Suitable
design of post-treatment can also enhance the boron removal for exam-
ple by incorporating conventional ion exchange bed with boron-
selective ion exchange resin or electrodialysis process (ED) [145].
Boron-selective resin is able to remove boron from the rst pass RO per-
meate to below 0.1 mg/L [146]. An integrated process ROED is also pro-
posed to remove boron by simultaneous concentration and recovery
[147]. Electrodeionization (EDI) is a deionization process that combines
the advantages of conventional ion exchange and ED. Beneting from
the advantages of those processes, EDI is able to achieve high removal
of ionic components including weakly ionized substances such as boron
and silica to a relatively low concentration. It is proved that EDI has capa-
bility to remove boron for more than 99% as reported in literature [148].
The study investigated the performance of EDI using feed water with
boron concentration about 3 mg/L. Results of the study showed that EDI
was able to produce diluted water with 25 g/L of boron. Therefore, EDI
has potential to be applied as SWRO post-treatment in order to achieve
high quality water that meets the requirement of boron removal. Recent-
ly, a report of new generation RO membrane showed that high boron re-
moval could be achieved even using a single pass RO conguration
resulting in boron level below 1.4 mg/L (91% rejection) which could com-
ply with WHO guideline [142]. Moreover, a higher boron removal of
N96% could be obtained by using a double-pass conguration without
pH adjustment [142].
7.5. Integrated desalination processes
Typically, desalination process extracts a large volume of water and
discharges concentrated brine back into environment. The brine concen-
tration is higher than the original feed water. Furthermore, pollutant com-
ponents in the brine can be classied as: corrosion products, anti-scaling
additives, anti-fouling additives, halogenated organic compounds
(formed by the reaction of residual chlorines and bromines with natural
organic matters), anti-foaming additives, oxygen scavengers, acid, and
concentrate [149]. The brine could potentially give impact on environ-
ment due to its salt concentration and chemical content. The impact
involves physicochemical and ecological of receiving environment
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125 121

wherein the brine is being discharged [150]. Brine disposal has potential
to degrade characteristics of receiving water and its severity depends on
volume, characteristics, dilution rate prior to dispose, and characteristics
of receiving water [149]. Many technologies have been investigated to
manage brine rejected from desalination plant. According to the
nal purpose, brine management options can be categorized into four
different groups: (1) reducing and eliminating brine disposal,
(2) commercial salt recovery, (3) brine adaption for industrial uses, and
(4) metal recovery [151].
One of the promising alternatives for brine handling is the integrated
process. To achieve the purpose of zero liquid discharge and dual-
purpose desalination and salt production, integrated desalination pro-
cesses have been proposed (Table 7). The integrated processes yield in
zero or near zero liquid discharge, increase water recovery, and benecial
salt production that can be used to reduce the overall fresh water produc-
tion cost. The integrated process includes combined membrane-thermal
desalination process and integrated membrane processes. For example,
integrated MF/NF/RO/MCr was reported to produce salts which
completely cover the fresh water production cost [152]. A more complex
integration has been proposed to further produce edible salt and electrol-
ysis product such as H2, Cl2, and NaOH. In concentrating RO brine using
electrodialysis (ED) for the chlor alkali industry, minor contaminations
could occur due to the concentration of Ni and Cu [153]. Those compo-
nents form Cu and Ni complexes with chloride ions. Sorour et al. pro-
posed an integrated desalination/salt recovery facility based on
membrane and thermal based processes [154]. The integrated facility in-
cludes MF, NF, RO, and electrodialysis (ED) membranes in addition to
thermal based processes i.e. multiple effect evaporator (MED) and evap-
orator crystallizer. The integrated system was designed with product
water capacity of 20,000 m3/day. Techno-economic assessment showed
that the integrated facility enabled 70% total water recovery with the
average product water salinity of 74 mg/L after mixing. Salt product in-
cludes raw magnesium (215 t/y), calcium (47 t/y), and sodium chloride
salts (754 t/y). The cost of water is about 0.98 $/m3 by selling the recov-
ered salts. Integrated desalination process is also developed to gain more
energy reduction in SWRO system. Prante et al. investigated RO-pressure
retarded osmosis (PRO) as an integrated low-energy approach to seawa-
ter desalination [155]. The system is called RO-PRO desalination. Specic
energy consumption is modeled using RO conditions at the thermody-
namic restriction and a novel module-based PRO model. The estimated
specic energy consumption was 1.2 kW/m3 which theoretically
achieves 40% energy reduction (an RO specic energy consumption of
2.0 kWh/m3) using cellulose triacetate membrane at 50% water recovery.
In addition, a maximum power density of 10 W/m2 could be achieved by
PRO. Minhas et al. conducted an analysis of RO-capacitive deionization
(CDI) process [156]. The RO-CDI and double stage RO system (RORO)
were compared based on their energy requirement and water production
during brackish water treatment in a simulation using published data on
brackish water RO. Results showed that RO-CDI has lower specic energy
consumption than RORO system. Also the water recovery of RO-CDI was
higher than RORO system. Moreover, RO-CDI product water was accept-
able for drinking water as recommended by WHO. The RO-CDI system
was also proposed to produce ultrapure water from seawater wherein
the CDI was recommended to be operated under constant current
[157]. Even though results of simulation showed that the system could
produce the high quality water, further investigation is still needed to de-
velop an energy economic system. An integrated NF/forward osmosis
(FO)/BWRO was reported as high recovery brackish desalination process
with N 90% total water recovery [158]. The integrated process was able to
produce different water qualities which are applicable for human uses
and agricultural activities. The main power consumption (about 80%)
was due to BWRO process while the rest is for NF and FO. More integrated
processes such as SAL-PROC process, ROSP process, and other processes
can be found elsewhere [159]. The integrated processes are intended to
improve water recovery and recover the valuable salts. In addition, the in-
tegrated processes are also used to manage brine produced by RO desali-
nation plants thus avoids environmental impact. Finally, the improved
water recovery and salt production may reduce the overall water
production.
7.6. Energy reduction and renewable energy sources
There have been many studies that contribute to the reduction of
energy consumption of RO desalination process. The main energy con-
sumption is energy required by pump to deliver feed water with high
pressure condition into RO units. Reversible pumps, pelton turbine,
turbo exchanger, pressure exchanger, and hydraulic pressure booster
are typical energy recovery devices which have been used to recover en-
ergy [140]. By using those devices, dramatic reduction in energy con-
sumption can be achieved. In spite of its success on energy recovery,
further development is still investigated to gain more reduction in
energy consumption. Improving desalination process design is also

Table 7
Typical example of proposed integrated desalination processes.

No. Schematic diagram of integrated process Description Ref.

1. NF decreases scale components. NF improves RO recovery. MSF produces high concentrated [160]
brine. System recovery is 61%. The water cost is $ 0.43/m3.

2. Integrated process MFNFROMCr. MCr unit treats NF retentante. Fresh water recovery is [152]
71.6%. The system produces 1.19 kg/m3 of CaCO3, 9.79 kg/m3 of NaCl, and 1.25 kg/m3 of
MgSO47H2O. Water production cost is $0.680.55/m3 (exclude the sale of the salts
produced). The cost of fresh water is completely covered by salts sale.

3. Integrated MF/UFNFROMCr processes. Brines from NF and RO unit are further [161]
concentrated up to salt crystal formation in a MCr unit. NaCl, CaCO3 and MgSO47H2O are
obtained as solid products from the NF retentate stream. NaCl is the product from the RO
brine. Other products such as LiCl can be produced when further concentration factor. The
introduction of MCr leads to a theoretical 100% recovery from the overall system.
4. ROED combined desalination and salt manufacturing process. The system produces drinking [162]
water from RO, edible salt and bittern (byproduct) from evaporation, and Cl2, H2, and NaOH
from electrolysis. H2 is supplied to fuel cells to generate electric power.
122 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
considered as a way to reduce energy consumption and water recovery.
For example, a novel energy-efcient reverse osmosis (EERO) was
reported to reduce the specic energy consumption for a same water re-
covery to conventional process [163]. In EERO, the retentate from single
stage reverse osmosis (SSRO) serves as the feed to a countercurrent
membrane cascade with recycle. The EERO design allows to maintain
the same osmotic pressure differential in the SSRO as well as the
CMCR stages that avoids the need for inter-stage high pressure pump.
Additionally, renewable energy sources are increasingly being investi-
gated for RO desalination plant to break the dependence on fossil fuel
[164168].
7.7. Large RO element
The growing of RO applications in desalination process is driven by
the need of fresh water especially for areasthat face severe water crisis.
RO has overtaken the thermal based desalination and the capacity of
the plants becomes larger. Very large SWRO plant is challenged by its
complexity in the larger system which associated with spaced required
and number of components. In some places, land is very expensive
which is considered as the major limitation for obtaining larger capacity.
To overcome this problem, manufacturers have investigated the most ef-
cient approach to develop SWRO system that requires smaller footprint
in particularly when the system is constructed at very large capacity. One
of the alternatives is developing membrane element with larger size. This
larger element is expected to reduce the foot print and the number of
components. The rst spiral wound RO module was introduced commer-
cially in 1964 with 4 in diameter by 40 in length which is known as
4040 module [169]. Afterward, larger diameter element with 8 in diam-
eter was introduced in 1975 [169] and has become a standard commer-
cial module for large scale plant. With the help of this standard
element, full scale RO plant has gained acceptance as a cost-effective
water treatment. However, since desalination plant becomes larger, the
use of 8040 element is no longer efcient. For example, SWRO plant of
76,000 m3/day capacity may need more than 4000 modules, 600 RO
pressure vessels, and numerous numbers of individual connections and
O-rings [170]. It is obvious then that larger capacity plant requires larger
size of RO element. The challenge for manufacturer is to nd out the op-
timum size of RO element while considering the effective element con-
struction and simplicity in procedure for loading and unloading
element into pressure vessels. Manufacturers have compared the RO ele-
ment with different nominal diameter. They can achieve the area ratio of
more than 5 by introducing 18 in nominal diameter compared to stan-
dard 8 module [171]. The typical element has been introduced by Koch
Membrane system as the Megamagnum element [170]. Study of larger
diameter RO module showed that considerable reduction in total water
cost can be acquired for large scale RO plant in comparison with using
conventional 8040 element [20]. Beneting from its individual effective
area, reduction in number of piping connections, reduction of footprint
required, and ease of operation and maintenance from smaller number
of components, the cost savings of RO plant can be achieved. Meanwhile,
practical issues which are associated with larger size such as loading and
unloading problem due to element weight and pressure vessel availabil-
ity element have been solved [169].
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to express their gratitude to GDP Filter,
Indonesia, for supporting the data and pictures of peat water treatment
and non-modular membrane.
References
[1] J.G. Wijmans, R.W. Baker, The solutiondiffusion model: a review, J. Membr. Sci.
107 (1995) 121.
[2] M. Mulder, Basic Principles of Membrane Technology, second ed. Kluwer Academic
Publisher, Netherlands, 1996.
[3] K.P. Lee, T.C. Arnot, D. Mattia, A review of reverse osmosis membrane materials for
desalinationdevelopment to date and future potential, J. Membr. Sci. 370 (2011)
122.
[4] B. Peate, L. Garca-Rodrguez, Current trends and future prospects in the design of
seawater reverse osmosis desalination technology, Desalination 284 (2012) 18.
[5] M. Voith, Membrane movers: water treatment businesses adapt their portfolios to
meet new regulations and reduce costs, Chem. Eng. News 88 (2010) 2223.
[6] IDE-Technologies, http://www.ide-tech.com/blog/case-study/sorek-israel-project/,
Accessed. September 17th, 2014.
[7] Khoiruddin, A. Hakim, I.G. Wenten, Advances in electrodeionization technology for
ionic separation-A review, Membr. Water Treat. 5 (2014) 87108.
[8] B. Tomaszewska, L. Pajk, M. Bodzek, Application of a hybrid UFRO process to
geothermal Water desalination. concentrate disposal and cost analysis, Arch. Envi-
ron. Prot. 40 (2014) 137151.
[9] . Arar, . Yksel, N. Kabay, M. Yksel, Demineralization of geothermal water re-
verse osmosis (RO) permeate by electrodeionization (EDI) with layered bed con-
guration, Desalination 317 (2013) 4854.
[10] T. Arar, T. Yksel, N. Kabay, M. Yksel, Application of electrodeionization (EDI) for
removal of boron and silica from reverse osmosis (RO) permeate of geothermal
water, Desalination 310 (2013) 2533.
[11] .G. ner, N. Kabay, E. Gler, M. Kiti, M. Yksel, A comparative study for the re-
moval of boron and silica from geothermal water by cross-ow at sheet reverse
osmosis method, Desalination 283 (2011) 1015.
[12] A. Bhattacharya, P. Ray, H. Brahmbhatt, K.N. Vyas, S.V. Joshi, C.V. Devmurari, J.J.
Trivedi, Pesticides removal performance by low-pressure reverse osmosis mem-
branes, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 102 (2006) 35753579.
[13] E. Draevi, K. Kouti, S. Finglerb, V. Drevenkar, Removal of pesticides from the
water and their adsorption on the reverse osmosis membranes of dened porous
structure, Desalin. Water Treat. 30 (2011) 161170.
[14] J.A.M.H. Hofman, E.F. Beerendonk, H.C. Folmer, J.C. Kruithof, Removal of pesticides
and other micropollutants with cellulose-acetate, polyamide and ultra-low
pressure reverse osmosis membranes, Desalination 113 (1997) 209214.
[15] W.N. Utami, R. Iqbal, I.G. Wenten, Rejection characteristics of organochlorine pes-
ticides by low pressure reverse osmosis membrane, JAI 6 (2010) 103108.
[16] C.F. Hurtado, B. Cancino-Madariaga, Ammonia retention capacity of nanoltration
and reverse osmosis membranes in a non steady state system, to be use in recircu-
lation aquaculture systems (RAS), Aquac. Eng. 58 (2014) 2934.
[17] B. Sauvet-Goichon, Ashkelon desalination plant a successful challenge, Desalina-
tion 203 (2007) 7581.
[18] K. Craig, B. Sauvet-Goichon, Ashkelon the world's largest seawater reverse os-
mosis desalination plant, Water 33 (2006) 49.
[19] T. Kawahara, Construction and operation experience of a large scale electrodialysis
water desalination plant, Desalination 96 (1994) 341346.
[20] T.I. Yun, C.J. Gabelich, M.R. Cox, A.A. Modi, R. Lesan, Reducing costs for large-scale
desalting plants using large-diameter, reverse osmosis membranes, Desalination
189 (2006) 141154.
[21] I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin, F. Aranto, Zudiharto, Bench scale electrodeionization for
high pressure boiler feed water, Desalination 314 (2013) 109114.
[22] P.K. Tewari, S. Prabhakar, M.P.S. Ramani, Evaluation of thermal desalination and re-
verse osmosis for the production of boiler feed water from sea water for coastal
thermal power stations in India, Desalination 79 (1990) 8593.
[23] S.G. Huling, G.A. Robert, A.S. Raymond, R.M. Matthew, Inuence of peat on Fenton
oxidation, Water Res. 35 (2001) 16871694.
[24] S.-G. Iris, H. David, S. Raphael, Humic substances fouling in ultraltration processes,
Desalination 261 (2010) 218231.
[25] Z. Domany, I. Galambos, G. Vatai, E. Bekassy-Molnar, Humic substances removal
from drinking water by membrane ltration, Desalination 145 (2002) 333337.
[26] H. degaard, S. Koottatep, Removal of humic substances from natural waters by re-
verse osmosis, Water Res. 16 (1982) 613620.
[27] W. Agui, S. Tamura, M. Abe, K. Ogino, Removal of dissolved humic substances
from water with a reverse osmosis membrane, Sci. Total Environ. 117-118
(1992) 543550.
[28] C.Y. Tang, Y.N. Kwon, J.O. Leckie, Characterization of humic acid fouled reverse
osmosis and nanoltration membranes by transmission electron microscopy
and streaming potential measurements, Environ. Sci. Technol. 41 (2007)
942949.
[29] C.Y. Tang, Y.N. Kwon, J.O. Leckie, Fouling of reverse osmosis and nanoltration
membranes by humic acideffects of solution composition and hydrodynamic
conditions, J. Membr. Sci. 290 (2007) 8694.
[30] C. Walrand-Grller, Treating industrial wastewater by reverse osmosis, Filtr. Sep.
32 (1995) 737745.
[31] Y. Xiao, T. Chen, Y. Hu, D. Wang, Y. Han, Y. Lin, X. Wang, Advanced treatment of
semiconductor wastewater by combined MBRRO technology, Desalination 336
(2014) 168178.
[32] J. Lozier, A. Fernandez, Using a membrane bioreactor/reverse osmosis system for
indirect potable reuse, Water Sci. Technol. Water Supply (2001) 303313.
[33] E. Dialynas, E. Diamadopoulos, Integration of a membrane bioreactor coupled with
reverse osmosis for advanced treatment of municipal wastewater, Desalination
238 (2009) 302311.
[34] S.-J. You, D.-H. Tseng, J.-Y. Deng, Using combined membrane processes for textile
dyeing wastewater reclamation, Desalination 234 (2008) 426432.
[35] T.K. Chen, J.N. Chen, Combined membrane bioreactor (MBR) and reverse osmosis
(RO) system for thin-lm transistor liquid crystal display TFT-LCD, industrial
wastewater recycling, Water Sci. Technol. (2004) 99106.
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
[36] J. Choi, J. Chung, Reuse of semiconductor wastewater using reverse osmosis and
metal-immobilized catalyst-based advanced oxidation process, Ind. Eng. Chem.
Res. 53 (2014) 1116711175.
[37] D. De Jager, M.S. Sheldon, W. Edwards, Colour removal from textile wastewater
using a pilot-scale dual-stage MBR and subsequent RO system, Sep. Purif. Technol.
135 (2014) 135144.
[38] M. Wethern, W. Katzaras, Reverse osmosis treatment of municipal sewage efuent
for industrial reuse, Desalination 102 (1995) 293299.
[39] S.B. Sadr Ghayeni, S.S. Madaeni, A.G. Fane, R.P. Schneider, Aspects of microltration
and reverse osmosis in municipal wastewater reuse, Desalination 106 (1996)
2529.
[40] M. Abdel-Jawad, S. Ebrahim, F. Al-Atram, S. Al-Shammari, Pretreatment of the mu-
nicipal wastewater feed for reverse osmosis plants, Desalination 109 (1997)
211223.
[41] T. Wintgens, T. Melin, A. Schfer, S. Khan, M. Muston, D. Bixio, C. Thoeye, The role of
membrane processes in municipal wastewater reclamation and reuse, Desalination
178 (2005) 111.
[42] R. Rautenbach, K. Vossenkaul, T. Linn, T. Katz, Waste water treatment by mem-
brane processes new development in ultraltration, nanoltration and reverse
osmosis, Desalination 108 (1997) 247253.
[43] T.A. Peters, Purication of landll leachate with reverse osmosis and nanoltration,
Desalination 119 (1998) 289293.
[44] X. Chai, G. Chen, P.L. Yue, Y. Mi, Pilot scale membrane separation of electroplating
waste water by reverse osmosis, J. Membr. Sci. 123 (1997) 235242.
[45] I.N. Widiasa, I.G. Wenten, Combination of reverse osmosis and electrodeionization
for simultaneous sugar recovery and salts removal from sugary wastewater,
Reaktor 11 (2007) 9197.
[46] M. Vourch, B. Balannec, B. Chaufer, G. Dorange, Treatment of dairy industry waste-
water by reverse osmosis for water reuse, Desalination 219 (2008) 190202.
[47] M. Fababuj-Roger, J.A. Mendoza-Roca, M.V. Galiana-Aleixandre, A. Bes-Pi, B.
Cuartas-Uribe, A. Iborra-Clar, Reuse of tannery wastewaters by combination of
ultraltration and reverse osmosis after a conventional physicalchemical
treatment, Desalination 204 (2007) 219226.
[48] T. Coskun, E. Debik, N.M. Demir, Treatment of olive mill wastewaters by
nanoltration and reverse osmosis membranes, Desalination 259 (2010) 6570.
[49] F. Tang, H.Y. Hu, L.J. Sun, Q.Y. Wu, Y.M. Jiang, Y.T. Guan, J.J. Huang, Fouling of re-
verse osmosis membrane for municipal wastewater reclamation: autopsy results
from a full-scale plant, Desalination 349 (2014) 7379.
[50] S. Chung, S. Kim, J.O. Kim, J. Chung, Feasibility of combining reverse osmosis-ferrite
process for reclamation of metal plating wastewater and recovery of heavy metals,
Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 53 (2014) 1519215199.
[51] A. Fakhru'l-Razi, A. Pendashteh, L.C. Abdullah, D.R.A. Biak, S.S. Madaeni, Z.Z. Abidin,
Review of technologies for oil and gas produced water treatment, J. Hazard. Mater.
170 (2009) 530551.
[52] A. Mnif, D. Tabassi, M. Ben Sik Ali, B. Hamrouni, Phenol removal from water by AG
reverse osmosis membrane, Environ. Prog. Sustainable Energy (2015).
[53] H. Li, P. Yu, Y. Luo, Fouling mechanisms and primary foulant constituents in reverse
osmosis membrane reclamation of a petrochemical secondary efuent, Desalin.
Water Treat. (2014).
[54] S. Alzahrani, A.W. Mohammad, P. Abdullah, O. Jaafar, Potential tertiary treatment of
produced water using highly hydrophilic nanoltration and reverse osmosis mem-
branes, J. Environ. Chem. Eng. 1 (2013) 13411349.
[55] M. Melo, H. Schluter, J. Ferreira, R. Magda, A. Jnior, O. de Aquino, Advanced perfor-
mance evaluation of a reverse osmosis treatment for oileld produced water
aiming reuse, Desalination 250 (2010) 10161018.
[56] L. Li, N. Liu, B. McPherson, R. Lee, Inuence of counter ions on the reverse osmosis
through MFI zeolite membranes: implications for produced water desalination,
Desalination 228 (2008) 217225.
[57] S. Mondal, S.R. Wickramasinghe, Produced water treatment by nanoltration and
reverse osmosis membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 322 (2008) 162170.
[58] N. Liu, L. Li, B. McPherson, R. Lee, Removal of organics from produced water by re-
verse osmosis using MFI-type zeolite membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 325 (2008)
357361.
[59] C. Murray-Gulde, J.E. Heatley, T. Karanl, J.H. Rodgers Jr., J.E. Myers, Performance of
a hybrid reverse osmosis-constructed wetland treatment system for brackish oil
eld produced water, Water Res. 37 (2003) 705713.
[60] S. Alzahrani, A.W. Mohammad, Challenges and trends in membrane technology
implementation for produced water treatment: a review, J. Water Proc. Eng. 4
(2014) 107133.
[61] C.R. Bartels, M. Wilf, K. Andes, J. Iong, Design considerations for wastewater treat-
ment by reverse osmosis, Water Science and Technology (2005) 473482.
[62] P. Xu, J.E. Drewes, Viability of nanoltration and ultra-low pressure reverse osmo-
sis membranes for multi-benecial use of methane produced water, Sep. Purif.
Technol. 52 (2006) 6776.
[63] B. Jiao, A. Cassano, E. Drioli, Recent advances on membrane processes for the con-
centration of fruit juices: a review, J. Food Eng. 63 (2004) 303324.
[64] D.F. Jesus, M.F. Leite, L.F.M. Silva, R.D. Modesta, V.M. Matta, L.M.C. Cabral, Orange
(Citrus sinensis) juice concentration by reverse osmosis, J. Food Eng. 81 (2007)
287291.
[65] K.D.P.P. Gunathilake, L.J. Yu, H.P.V. Rupasinghe, Reverse osmosis as a potential
technique to improve antioxidant properties of fruit juices used for functional
beverages, Food Chem. 148 (2014) 335341.
[66] R. Merson, A. Morgan, Juice concentration by reverse osmosis, Food Technol. 22
(1968) 97.
[67] R.P. Bowden, A.R. Isaacs, Concentration of pineapple juice by reverse osmosis, Food
Aust. 41 (1989) 850851.
123
[68] R. Braddock, S. Nikdel, S. Nagy, Composition of some organic and inorganic com-
pounds in reverse osmosis-concentrated citrus juices, J. Food Sci. 53 (1988)
508512.
[69] B.G. Medina, A. Garcia, Concentration of Orange juice by reverse osmosis, J. Food
Process Eng. 10 (1988) 217230.
[70] L. Palmieri, M.D. Rosa, G. Dall'Aglio, G. Carpi, Dalla production of kiwifruit concen-
trate by reverse osmosis process, Acta Horticult. 282 (1990) 435439.
[71] H.T. Chua, M. Rao, T. Acree, D. Cunningham, Reverse osmosis concentration of
apple juice: ux and avor retention by cellulose acetate and polyamide mem-
branes, J. Food Process Eng. 9 (1987) 231245.
[72] S.S. Madaeni, S. Zereshki, Energy consumption for sugar manufacturing. Part I: evap-
oration versus reverse osmosis, Energy Convers. Manag. 51 (2010) 12701276.
[73] J.S. Nuss, D.E. Guyer, D.A. Gage, Concentration of onion juice volatiles by reverse os-
mosis and its effects on supercritical CO2 extraction, J. Food Process Eng. 20 (1997)
125139.
[74] V. Alvarez, S. Alvarez, F.A. Riera, R. Alvarez, Permeate ux prediction in apple juice
concentration by reverse osmosis, J. Membr. Sci. 127 (1997) 2534.
[75] A. Cassano, E. Drioli, G. Galaverna, R. Marchelli, G. Di Silvestro, P. Cagnasso, Clari-
cation and concentration of citrus and carrot juices by integrated membrane
processes, J. Food Eng. 57 (2003) 153163.
[76] V.M. Matta, R.H. Moretti, L.M.C. Cabral, Microltration and reverse osmosis for
clarication and concentration of acerola juice, J. Food Eng. 61 (2004) 477482.
[77] R.B. Rodrigues, H.C. Menezes, L.M.C. Cabral, M. Dornier, G.M. Rios, M. Reynes, Eval-
uation of reverse osmosis and osmotic evaporation to concentrate camu-camu
juice (Myrciaria dubia), J. Food Eng. 63 (2004) 97102.
[78] N. Pap, S. Kertsz, E. Pongrcz, L. Myllykoski, R.L. Keiski, G. Vatai, Z. Lszl, S.
Beszdes, C. Hodr, Concentration of blackcurrant juice by reverse osmosis, Desa-
lination 241 (2009) 256264.
[79] P.D. Gurak, L.M.C. Cabral, M.H.M. Rocha-Leo, V.M. Matta, S.P. Freitas, Quality eval-
uation of grape juice concentrated by reverse osmosis, J. Food Eng. 96 (2010)
421426.
[80] A.P. Echavarra, V. Falguera, C. Torras, C. Berdn, J. Pagn, A. Ibarz, Ultraltration
and reverse osmosis for clarication and concentration of fruit juices at pilot
plant scale, LWT Food Sci. Technol. 46 (2012) 189195.
[81] Y. Pouliot, Membrane processes in dairy technologyfrom a simple idea to world-
wide panacea, Int. Dairy J. 18 (2008) 735740.
[82] P. Kumar, N. Sharma, R. Ranjan, S. Kumar, Z. Bhat, D.K. Jeong, Perspective of Mem-
brane Technology in dairy industry: a review, Asian-Australas. J. Anim. Sci. 26
(2013) 13471358.
[83] F. Glover, Concentration of milk by ultraltration and reverse osmosis, J. Dairy Res.
38 (1971) 373379.
[84] G. Cox, I. Langdon, Economic evaluation of reverse osmosis for reduction in milk
transport costs, Aust. J. Dairy Technol. 40 (1985) 113117.
[85] D. Bynum, D. Barbano, Whole milk reverse osmosis retentates for Cheddar cheese
manufacture: chemical changes during aging, J. Dairy Sci. 68 (1985) 110.
[86] F. Davies, P. Shankar, H. Underwood, Recent developments in yoghurt starters: the
use of milk concentrated by reverse osmosis for the manufacture of yoghurt, Int. J.
Dairy Technol. 30 (1977) 2328.
[87] J. Abbot, F.A. Glover, D.D. Muir, P.J. Skudder, Application of reverse osmosis to the
manufacture of dried whole milk and skim-milk, J. Dairy Res. 46 (1979) 663672.
[88] B. Dixon, Dairy products prepared from reverse osmosis concentrate. Market milk
products, butter, skim milk powder and yoghurt, Aust. J. Dairy Technol. 40 (1985)
9195.
[89] J. Hiddink, R. De Boer, P. Nooy, Reverse osmosis of dairy liquids, J. Dairy Sci. 63
(1980) 204214.
[90] A.J.B. van Boxtel, Z.E.H. Otten, H.J.L.J. van der Linden, Evaluation of process models
for fouling control of reverse osmosis of cheese whey, J. Membr. Sci. 58 (1991)
89111.
[91] S.S. Madaeni, Y. Mansourpanah, Chemical cleaning of reverse osmosis membranes
fouled by whey, Desalination 161 (2004) 1324.
[92] N.M. D'souza, A.J. Mawson, Membrane cleaning in the dairy industry: a review,
Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. 45 (2005) 125134.
[93] A. Syrios, M. Faka, A.S. Grandison, M.J. Lewis, A comparison of reverse osmosis,
nanoltration and ultraltration as concentration processes for skim milk prior
to drying, Int. J. Dairy Technol. 64 (2011) 467472.
[94] B. Balannec, G. Gsan-Guiziou, B. Chaufer, M. Rabiller-Baudry, G. Daun, Treatment
of dairy process waters by membrane operations for water reuse and milk constit-
uents concentration, Desalination 147 (2002) 8994.
[95] I. Koyuncu, M. Turan, D. Topacik, A. Ates, Application of low pressure nanoltration
membranes for the recovery and reuse of dairy industry efuents, Water Sci.
Technol. 41 (2000) 213221.
[96] M. Frappart, M. Jaffrin, L.H. Ding, Reverse osmosis of diluted skim milk: comparison
of results obtained from vibratory and rotating disk modules, Sep. Purif. Technol.
60 (2008) 321329.
[97] A. Surez, T. Fidalgo, M.A. Berdasco, F.A. Riera, UHT condensate recovery by reverse
osmosis: a pilot-plant study, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 53 (2014) 1523715244.
[98] A. Surez, T. Fidalgo, F.A. Riera, Recovery of dairy industry wastewaters by reverse
osmosis. Production of boiler water, Sep. Purif. Technol. 133 (2014) 204211.
[99] C. Aydiner, U. Sen, S. Topcu, D. Sesli, D. Ekinci, A.D. Altinay, B. Ozbey, D.Y. Koseoglu-
Imer, B. Keskinler, Techno-economic investigation of water recovery and whey
powder production from whey using UF/RO and FO/RO integrated membrane
systems, Desalin. Water Treat. 52 (2014) 123133.
[100] M. Catarino, A. Mendes, L.M. Madeira, A. Ferreira, Alcohol removal from beer by re-
verse osmosis, Sep. Sci. Technol. 42 (2007) 30113027.
[101] S.A. Leeper, G.T. Tsao, Membrane separations in ethanol recovery: an analysis of
two applications of hyperltration, J. Membr. Sci. 30 (1987) 289312.
124 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125
[102] M. Lpez, S. Alvarez, F.A. Riera, R. Alvarez, Production of low alcohol content apple
cider by reverse osmosis, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 41 (2002) 66006606.
[103] M.V. Pilipovik, C. Riverol, Assessing dealcoholization systems based on reverse os-
mosis, J. Food Eng. 69 (2005) 437441.
[104] M. Catarino, A. Mendes, Dealcoholizing wine by membrane separation processes,
Innovative Food Sci. Emerg. 12 (2011) 330337.
[105] M. Gil, S. Estvez, N. Kontoudakis, F. Fort, J.M. Canals, F. Zamora, Inuence of partial
dealcoholization by reverse osmosis on red wine composition and sensory charac-
teristics, Eur. Food Res. Technol. 237 (2013) 481488.
[106] M. Catarino, A. Mendes, L. Madeira, A. Ferreira, Beer dealcoholization by reverse os-
mosis, Desalination 200 (2006) 397399.
[107] J. Labanda, S. Vichi, J. Llorens, E. Lpez-Tamames, Membrane separation technology
for the reduction of alcoholic degree of a white model wine, LWT Food Sci. Technol.
42 (2009) 13901395.
[108] R. Rautenbach, A. Grschl, Fractionation of aqueous organic mixtures by reverse
osmosis, Desalination 90 (1993) 93106.
[109] J. Kopecek, S. Sourirajan, Performance of porous cellulose acetate membranes for
the reverse osmosis separation of mixtures of organic liquids, Ind. Eng. Chem. Pro-
cess. Des. Dev. 9 (1970) 512.
[110] Y. Fang, S. Sourirajan, T. Matsuura, Reverse osmosis separation of binary organic
mixtures using cellulose acetate butyrate and aromatic polyamide membranes, J.
Appl. Polym. Sci. 44 (1992) 19591969.
[111] G.H. Koops, S. Yamada, S.I. Nakao, Separation of linear hydrocarbons and carboxylic
acids from ethanol and hexane solutions by reverse osmosis, J. Membr. Sci. 189
(2001) 241254.
[112] L.A.V. Sarmento, C.B. Spricigo, J.C.C. Petrus, L.H.C. Carlson, R.A.F. MacHado, Perfor-
mance of reverse osmosis membranes in the separation of supercritical CO2 and
essential oils, J. Membr. Sci. 237 (2004) 7176.
[113] K. Rezzadori, J.G. Veneral, J.C.M. Silveira, F.M. Penha, J.C.C. Petrus, P. Prdanos, L.
Palacio, A. Hernndez, M. Di Luccio, Effect of dense CO2 on polymeric reverse os-
mosis and nanoltration membranes and permeation of mixtures of macauba oil
(Acrocomia aculeata) and CO2, J. Membr. Sci. 481 (2015) 195206.
[114] K. Rezzadori, F. Marques Penha, M.C. Proner, G. Zin, J.C. Cunha Petrus, P. Prdanos,
L. Palacio, A. Hernndez, M. Di Luccio, Evaluation of reverse osmosis and
nanoltration membranes performance in the permeation of organic solvents, J.
Membr. Sci. 492 (2015) 478489.
[115] P. Vandezande, L.E. Gevers, I.F. Vankelecom, Solvent resistant nanoltration: sepa-
rating on a molecular level, Chem. Soc. Rev. 37 (2008) 365405.
[116] P. Dolej, V. Potulka, Z. Sedlkov, V. Jandov, J. Vejraka, E. Esposito, J.C. Jansen, P. [150] D.A. Roberts, E.L. Johnston, N.A. Knott, Impacts of desalination plant discharges on
Izk, Simultaneous hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide removal from biogas by
water-swollen reverse osmosis membrane, Sep. Purif. Technol. 131 (2014) 108116.
[117] W. Li, B. Van der Bruggen, P. Luis, Integration of reverse osmosis and membrane
crystallization for sodium sulphate recovery, Chem. Eng. Process. Process Intensif.
85 (2014) 5768.
[118] L. Ahsan, M.S. Jahan, Y. Ni, Recovering/concentrating of hemicellulosic sugars and
acetic acid by nanoltration and reverse osmosis from prehydrolysis liquor of
kraft based hardwood dissolving pulp process, Bioresour. Technol. 155 (2014)
111115.
[119] H. Ruan, Z. Yang, J. Lin, J. Shen, J. Ji, C. Gao, B. Van der Bruggen, Biogas slurry con-
centration hybrid membrane process: pilot-testing and RO membrane cleaning,
Desalination 368 (2015) 171180.
[120] H. Gong, Z. Yan, K.Q. Liang, Z.Y. Jin, K.J. Wang, Concentrating process of liquid
digestate by disk tube-reverse osmosis system, Desalination 326 (2013) 3036.
[121] A.S. Michaels, Membranes, membrane processes, and their applications: needs, un-
solved problems, and challenges of the 1990's, Desalination 77 (1990) 534.
[122] X. Yang, R. Wang, A.G. Fane, C.Y. Tang, I.G. Wenten, Membrane module design and
dynamic shear-induced techniques to enhance liquid separation by hollow ber
modules: a review, Desalin. Water Treat. 51 (2013) 36043627.
[123] S.S. Shenvi, A.M. Isloor, A.F. Ismail, A review on RO membrane technology: devel-
opments and challenges, Desalination 368 (2015) 1026.
[124] W. Guo, H.-H. Ngo, J. Li, A mini-review on membrane fouling, Bioresour. Technol.
122 (2012) 2734.
[125] E. Alhseinat, R. Sheikholeslami, A completely theoretical approach for assessing
fouling propensity along a full-scale reverse osmosis process, Desalination 301
(2012) 19.
[126] R. Sheikholeslami, Fouling mitigation in membrane processes: report on a work-
shop held January 2629, 1999, technionIsrael Institute of Technology, Haifa,
Israel, Desalination 123 (1999) 4553.
[127] I.G. Wenten, Khioruddin, P.T.P. Aryanti, A.N. Hakim, Scale-up strategies for
membrane-based desalination processes: a review, J. Membr. Sci. Res. (2014).
[128] S.G.J. Heijman, H. Guo, S. Li, J.C. van Dijk, L.P. Wessels, Zero liquid discharge: head-
ing for 99% recovery in nanoltration and reverse osmosis, Desalination 236
(2009) 357362.
[129] N. Pomerantz, Y. Ladizhansky, E. Korin, M. Waisman, N. Daltrophe, J. Gilron,
Prevention of scaling of reverse osmosis membranes by zeroing the elapsed
nucleation time. Part I. Calcium sulfate, Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 45 (2006) 20082016.
[130] J. Park, W. Jeong, J. Nam, J. Kim, J. Kim, K. Chon, E. Lee, H. Kim, A. Jang, An analysis of
the effects of osmotic backwashing on the seawater reverse osmosis process, Envi-
ron. Technol. (United Kingdom) 35 (2014) 14551461.
[131] A. Sagiv, N. Avraham, C.G. Dosoretz, R. Semiat, Osmotic backwash mechanism of
reverse osmosis membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 322 (2008) 225233.
[132] D. Zhao, S. Yu, A review of recent advance in fouling mitigation of NF/RO mem-
branes in water treatment: pretreatment, membrane modication, and chemical
cleaning, Desalin. Water Treat. 55 (2014) 870891.
[133] J. Lin, S. Murad, A computer simulation study of the separation of aqueous solu-
tions using thin zeolite membranes, Mol. Phys. 99 (2001) 11751181.
[134] L. Li, J. Dong, T.M. Nenoff, R. Lee, Desalination by reverse osmosis using MFI zeolite
membranes, J. Membr. Sci. 243 (2004) 401404.
[135] L. Li, J. Dong, T.M. Nenoff, R. Lee, Reverse osmosis of ionic aqueous solutions on a
MFI zeolite membrane, Desalination 170 (2004) 309316.
[136] L. Li, N. Liu, B. McPherson, R. Lee, Enhanced water permeation of reverse osmosis
through MFI-type zeolite membranes with high aluminum contents, Ind. Eng.
Chem. Res. 46 (2007) 15841589.
[137] I. Kumakiri, T. Yamaguchi, S.I. Nakao, Application of a zeolite a membrane to re-
verse osmosis process, J. Chem. Eng. Jpn 33 (2000) 333336.
[138] M. Kazemimoghadam, New nanopore zeolite membranes for water treatment, De-
salination 251 (2010) 176180.
[139] M.G. Buonomenna, Nano-enhanced reverse osmosis membranes, Desalination 314
(2013) 7388.
[140] L.F. Greenlee, D.F. Lawler, B.D. Freeman, B. Marrot, P. Moulin, Reverse osmosis de-
salination: Water sources, technology, and today's challenges, Water Res. 43
(2009) 23172348.
[141] P.K. Park, S. Lee, J.S. Cho, J.H. Kim, Full-scale simulation of seawater reverse osmosis
desalination processes for boron removal: effect of membrane fouling, Water Res.
46 (2012) 37963804.
[142] A. Farhat, F. Ahmad, N. Hilal, H.A. Arafat, Boron removal in new generation reverse
osmosis (RO) membranes using two-pass RO without pH adjustment, Desalination
310 (2013) 5059.
[143] K. Kezia, J. Lee, A.J. Hill, S.E. Kentish, Convective transport of boron through a brack-
ish water reverse osmosis membrane, J. Membr. Sci. 445 (2013) 160169.
[144] M.H. Oo, L. Song, Effect of pH and ionic strength on boron removal by RO mem-
branes, Desalination 246 (2009) 605612.
[145] K.L. Tu, L.D. Nghiem, A.R. Chivas, Boron removal by reverse osmosis membranes in
seawater desalination applications, Sep. Purif. Technol. 75 (2010) 87101.
[146] N. Kabay, S. Sarp, M. Yuksel, M. Kitis, H. Koseolu, . Arar, M. Bryjak, R. Semiat, Re-
moval of boron from SWRO permeate by boron selective ion exchange resins con-
taining N-methyl glucamine groups, Desalination 223 (2008) 4956.
[147] P. Dydo, M. Turek, The concept for an EDRO integrated system for boron removal
with simultaneous boron recovery in the form of boric acid, Desalination 342
(2014) 3542.
[148] R. Wen, S. Deng, Y. Zhang, The removal of silicon and boron from ultra-pure water
by electrodeionization, Desalination 181 (2005) 153159.
[149] I. Alameddine, M. El-Fadel, Brine discharge from desalination plants: a modeling
approach to an optimized outfall design, Desalination 214 (2007) 241260.
the marine environment: a critical review of published studies, Water Res. 44
(2010) 51175128.
[151] J. Morillo, J. Usero, D. Rosado, H. El Bakouri, A. Riaza, F.-J. Bernaola, Comparative
study of brine management technologies for desalination plants, Desalination
336 (2014) 3249.
[152] E. Drioli, E. Curcio, G. Di Proo, F. Macedonio, A. Criscuoli, Integrating membrane
contactors technology and pressure-driven membrane operations for seawater de-
salination: energy, exergy and costs analysis, Chem. Eng. Res. Des. 84 (2006)
209220.
[153] M. Reig, S. Casas, C. Aladjem, C. Valderrama, O. Gibert, F. Valero, C.M. Centeno, E.
Larrotcha, J.L. Cortina, Concentration of NaCl from seawater reverse osmosis brines
for the chlor-alkali industry by electrodialysis, Desalination 342 (2014) 107117.
[154] M.H. Sorour, H.A. Hani, H.F. Shaalan, G.A. Al-Bazedi, Preliminary techno-economics
assessment of developed desalination/salt recovery facility based on membrane
and thermal techniques, Desalin. Water Treat. (2014).
[155] J.L. Prante, J.A. Ruskowitz, A.E. Childress, A. Achilli, ROPRO desalination: an inte-
grated low-energy approach to seawater desalination, Appl. Energy 120 (2014)
104114.
[156] M.B. Minhas, Y.A.C. Jande, W.S. Kim, Hybrid reverse osmosis-capacitive deioniza-
tion versus two-stage reverse osmosis: a comparative analysis, Chem. Eng.
Technol. 37 (2014) 11371145.
[157] M.B. Minhas, Y.A.C. Jande, W.S. Kim, Combined reverse osmosis and constant-
current operated capacitive deionization system for seawater desalination, Desali-
nation 344 (2014) 299305.
[158] A. Altaee, N. Hilal, High recovery rate NFFORO hybrid system for inland brackish
water treatment, Desalination 363 (2015) 1925.
[159] A. Neilly, V. Jegatheesan, L. Shu, Evaluating the potential for zero discharge from re-
verse osmosis desalination using integrated processes a review, Desalin. Water
Treat. 11 (2009) 5865.
[160] M. Turek, Seawater desalination and salt production in a hybrid membrane-
thermal process, Desalination 153 (2002) 173177.
[161] E. Drioli, G. Di Proo, E. Curcio, Progress in membrane crystallization, Curr. Opin.
Chem. Eng. 1 (2012) 178182.
[162] Y. Tanaka, M. Reig, S. Casas, C. Aladjem, J.L. Cortina, Computer simulation of ion-
exchange membrane electrodialysis for salt concentration and reduction of RO
discharged brine for salt production and marine environment conservation, Desa-
lination 367 (2015) 7689.
[163] T.H. Chong, S.L. Loo, W.B. Krantz, Energy-efcient reverse osmosis desalination
process, J. Membr. Sci. 473 (2014) 177188.
[164] C. Dansoh, The viability of renewable energy and energy storage as the power
source for municipal-scale reverse osmosis desalination, Desalin. Water Treat.
(2014).
[165] D.A. Dehmas, N. Kherba, F.B. Hacene, N.K. Merzouk, M. Merzouk, H. Mahmoudi, M.F.A.
Goosen, On the use of wind energy to power reverse osmosis desalination plant: a
case study from Tns (Algeria), Renew. Sust. Energ. Rev. 15 (2011) 956963.
[166] A. Ghermandi, R. Messalem, Solar-driven desalination with reverse osmosis: the
state of the art, Desalin. Water Treat. 7 (2009) 285296.
 I.G. Wenten, Khoiruddin / Desalination 391 (2016) 112125 125

[167] S.A. Kershman, J. Rheinlnder, H. Gabler, Seawater reverse osmosis powered from
renewable energy sources hybrid wind/photovoltaic/grid power supply for
small-scale desalination in Libya, Desalination 153 (2003) 1723.
[168] A.J.N. Khalifa, Evaluation of different hybrid power scenarios to reverse osmosis
(RO) desalination units in isolated areas in Iraq, Energy Sustain. Dev. 15 (2011)
4954.
[169] P. Moss, R. Skelton, Large diameter RO elements: a summary of recent operating
experiences, Desalin. Water Treat. 6 (2009) 8085.
[170] A. von Gottberg, High-capacity RO elements offer plant operators smaller foot-
prints, Filtr. Sep. 41 (2004) 3235.
[171] B. Antrim, R. Lesan, B. Liu, A. Von Gottberg, Worlds largest spiral elementhistory
and development, Desalination 178 (2005) 313324.