Pretreatment Process on Reverse Osmosis Brine as Electrodialysis Feed

Abstract

Reverse Osmosis (RO) Brine is waste generated from the desalination process using the RO method. RO Brine is generally directly thrown back into the sea, even though it has the potential to be reprocessed because it still contains a variety of ions in it. The best method in RO Brine processing is Electrodialysis. But it has a problem of decreased membrane performance caused by the formation of fouling. The fouling problem can be overcome by doing a pretreatment process to eliminate impurities contained in RO Brine, one of which is Ca2+. The existence of Ca2+ can trigger the formation of CaSO4 deposits. Therefore, it needs excess reagent Na2CO3 with a certain amount to eliminate the whole Ca2+. Currently, it isn’t yet known the best pretreatment conditions that can eliminate impurities ions and produce high concentrations of NaCl. Pretreatment trials are needed in various variations of reagents amount to reduce impurities. The purpose of this study is to find out the best RO Brine pretreatment process that will later be used for the electrodialysis process to produce high NaCl recovery. The best results were obtained in the pretreatment process with variations NaOH excesses by 15% and Na2CO3 by 30% from the ideal stoichiometry.