ABSTRACT
With the demand for clean water growing rapidly, there has never been a greater and more urgent need for better and cheaper innovative methods for reclaiming wastewater, replenishing surface water and groundwater, and for providing clean drinkable water. This chapter has three main deliverables. It begins with a comprehensive state-of-the-art on the use of spiral-wound reverse osmosis for wastewater treatment. The review provides a detailed comparison of the underlying distributed modeling and simulation methodologies used, as well as key outcomes in respect of reliability, effectiveness, and practicality of the various solutions for removing harmful contents. The chapter then introduces two steady-state one-dimensional models based on a single wound RO process and the other on the Spiegler and Kedem model. The models are discussed in detail in terms of governing equations, experimental procedure, and validation analysis taking full account of the operating parameters and infrastructure constraints. The chapter concludes by reviewing available optimization methods for wastewater treatment based on genetic algorithms and presenting an augmented GA optimization methodology for achieving an even higher removal rate of phenol and phenolic compounds from wastewater.
