Energetic and exergetic analysis of an integrated membrane desalination system

An integrated reverse osmosis (RO) + membrane distillation (MD) system wher e MD operates on the RO brine is considered for desalination processes. In particular, an energy and exergy analysis of the RO unit alone and coupled to the MD unit is presented in order to determine the energy requirements r elated to the integrated system with respect to the RO one. This energetic analysis coupled to the analysis of the overall performance of the two diff erent systems led to an evaluation of the potentialities of the integrated membrane processes in desalination operations. The analysis has been tentat ively extended to a complete membrane integrated system where nanofiltratio n (NF) has been also considered in the RO feed pretreatment.