Experimental verification of a model for rotating reverse osmosis Original Research Article

Reverse osmosis (RO) is an efficient process for the removal of ionic and organic pollutants from contaminated water. In this study, rotating RO, which takes advantage of Taylor-Couette flow instabilities to reduce the flux decline related to concentration polarization and membrane fouling, was investigated experimentally and compared to a dynamic model based on RO membrane transport incorporating concentration polarization. The model matches the experiments quite well. Increasing the rotational speed and transmembrane pressure enhances the flux and rejection in rotating RO.