ABSTRACT
Several applications have confirmed Reverse Osmosis (RO) as an efficient separation method for removing both organic and non-organic chemicals found in seawater and wastewater. This chapter shows that such applications for removing highly toxic compounds from wastewater. It presents the state of the art for both steady state and dynamic RO simulations developed for wastewater treatment and discusses, more particularly, the important impact of several operating parameters on process performance. Simulation studies based on theoretical models have been widely used to investigate the hydrodynamics of the RO process. Water flux deterioration during a RO filtration process is mainly due to the accumulation of solute at the membrane surface, which causes an increase in the osmotic pressure of the feed and concentration polarisation. Feed flow rate and specifically crossflow is a significant parameter in any RO process. It is basically related to the Reynolds number of fluid, which in turn affects the concentration polarisation.
