desalination membrane ...

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desalination membrane operation

Hi James,

There are a few issues here. Remember that you have a waste stream that goes from the concentrate side of the membrane to drain and without primary pumps pushing the water you have no cross flow velocity to keep the membrane functional with that feed water flowing to drain under reasonable velocity.

 As well the amount of vacuum required to pull water through a membrane is so high it would vaporize the water on the suction side of the pump causing aviation and wiping out the pump. The trans membrane pressure to desalinate is substantial I don't know of a pump that will pull that much vacuum at the flow rates required.

There will be issues relating to membrane mechanical stability with high vacuum on the low pressure side of the membrane - they aren't made that way. 

Hope that helps.

Derek