Desalination is the process of removing salts and minerals from saline water, typically through membrane filtration such as reverse osmosis (RO). The purified water called “permeate” is then used for potable water applications. On the other hand, the brine or “concentrate” which contains all of the salts and other minerals rejected by the RO process.

According to the International Desalination Association as of June 2015, there were 18,426 desalination plants across the globe producing 86.8 million cubic meters of potable water per day. Naturally,the more potable water is produced, the more concentrate/brine results from this process. In addition, chemical pretreatment and
cleaning are important steps in the desalination process which are used to prevent biofouling, scaling and other issues that typically occur in membrane filtration. Therefore, the brine must be treated and neutralizedprior to disposal in order to reduce the environmental impact.

FTS offers its OsmoBC™ forward osmosis system that can further treat RO reject to enhance the overall recovery rate of desalination systems, able to treat highly contaminated feed streams without pretreatment, ensuring reduced capital and operation costs.