Feasibility of Increasing Water Recovery of Inland Reverse Osmosis Systems and the Use of Reject Brine

Desalination technologies have been emerged to supply water from unconventional water sources, and reverse osmosis systems account for a large share of desalination facilities. The quality and quantity of reject brine from desalination processes depend on the characteristics of feed water, recovery rate, type, and capacity of desalination technology. This study has been done to mitigate the environmental impacts of reject brine disposal in inland areas by investigating the two approaches of using reject brine as sources of water supply or reducing its final volume. First, the reject brine's quality data from ten inland water desalination plants using reverse osmosis system were collected. Then, the potential use of reject brine in activities including agriculture, aquaculture, industry, livestock, poultry, and turfgrass was evaluated. It was concluded that the quality of reject brine in some plants is suitably enough to be used directly in the mentioned uses. Finally, by the use of CSMPRO4 and ROSA9 software, the quality of reject brine was analysed and different methods for the reject brine management were investigated. The results showed that recovering water from reject brine with the help of appropriate pre-treatment options and use of chemicals is possible up to 95%.