New Developments in Membrane Desalting Technologies and Their Application

This paper will briefly review membrane desalting processes and discuss new innovations that have recently been commercialized and some anticipated future improvements that are currently in research and development. Some of the new innovations that are discussed are recent membrane developments which improve productivity and/or rejection capabilities, large-diameter elements for cost reduction, and innovative new membrane products (some of which are not yet commercially available). Also discussed, new multiport pressure vessels which can replace piping manifolds, new higher-efficiency energy recovery devices, improved pretreatment processes, pressure centers for large capacity plants, concentrate management advances, improvements in integration of membrane systems with other water and power facilities and ?green? membrane facilities with reduced environmental impact.