Design Considerations and in-Depth Review of Reverse Osmosis Plants
Reverse osmosis is basically the process of forcing a solvent particularly from a region of very high solute concentration via a membrane to a region of very low solute concentration particularly by applying absolute pressure in excess of the respective osmotic pressure. This is actually the reverse of the osmosis process that is quite normal, which is basically the natural movement of solvent from an area of very low solute concentration, via a membrane, to an area of particularly high solute concentration when absolutely no external pressure is been applied. The membrane here is called semi-permeable, meaning it allows the complete passage of solvent but not exactly of solute. To illustrate, let us imagine a the semi-permeable membrane contains fresh water on one side and an aqueous solution that is concentrated on the other side. If osmosis that is normally taking place, the fresh water will basically cross the membrane to completely dilute the solution that is concentrated. In...