Aende, A, Gardy, J orcid.org/0000-0003-1806-4056 and Hassanpour, A (2020) Seawater Desalination: A Review of Forward Osmosis Technique, Its Challenges, and Future Prospects. Processes, 8 (8). 901. ISSN 2227-9717
Abstract
Currently over 845 million people are believed to be living under severe water scarcity, and an estimated 2.8 billion people across the globe are projected to come under serious water scarcity by the year 2025, according to a United Nations (UN) report. Seawater desalination has gained more traction as the solution with the most potential for increasing global freshwater supplies amongst other solutions. However, the economic and energy costs associated with the major desalination technologies are considered intrinsically prohibitive largely due to their humongous energy requirements alongside the requirements of complex equipment and their maintenance in most cases. Whilst forward osmosis (FO) is being touted as a potentially more energy efficient and cost-effective alternative desalination technique, its efficiency is challenged by draw solutes and the draw solutes recovery step in FO applications alongside other challenges. This paper looks at the present situation of global water scarcity, and a brief leap into the major desalination technologies employed. A closer look at the key drivers of FO as a seawater desalination technique in their individual domain and its outlook as an technology are further highlighted.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | water desalination; forward osmosis; draw solutions; water scarcity; desalination technologies |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Chemical & Process Engineering (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Jul 2020 12:52 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:22 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | MDPI |
Identification Number: | 10.3390/pr8080901 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:163848 |