Recent development in the membrane technology indicates that forward osmosis (FO) has a high potential for wastewater treatment, concentrating nutrients and producing high quality water when combined with other membrane processes such as reverse osmosis (RO). However, the main barrier for implemention of this technology is the high cost of regeneration of draw solution. Membrane Distillation (MD) is another promising membrane process, mainly due to lower energy consumption. By utilizing the excess of heat of wastewater streams coming at elevated temperatur (above 50o C), a generated temperatur gradiant can be used as a driving force to operate MD allowing cheap regeneration of draw solution. The objective of this project is to develop a concept of a commercial system based on a combined forward osmosis and membrane distillation process to regenerate draw solution in collaboration with Aquaporin A/S. The main focus of the experimental study is to optimize operationg conditions af MD and to study economic feasibility of combined FO and MD process. Further the experimental results will be used for design of a pilot plant and will be implemented into Business development strategy to find potential customers.
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