A review of the current status of small-scale seawater reverse osmosis desalination

ABSTRACT

The current status of small-scale desalination (produced water capacity 100 m³/day or less) is reviewed to provide an overview of the market segment. The use of energy-recovery devices in this market segment is also reviewed. We find that the Middle East accounts for the largest market share worldwide at present, and reverse osmosis is overwhelmingly dominant among the desalination technologies adopted. Implementation of energy-recovery devices at small scale is rare, which leads to relatively high energy consumption for small-scale seawater reverse osmosis desalination systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Small-scale desalination
• reverse osmosis
• energy-recovery device
• statistics

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the primary funding support from the Singapore National Research Foundation. We would also like to acknowledge the funding support from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which made the partnership between the Technical University of Darmstadt and Nanyang Technological University possible, in the frame of the Thematic Network ‘Clean Water China and Southeast Asia’, DAAD Programme Strategic Partnerships and Thematic Networks 2012, Programme Line B, Project No. DAAD: 56268477.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported primarily by the National Research Foundation Singapore [NRF2015NRF-POC001-007] and by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research [DAAD: 56268477].