Can osmosis filters be used on a large scale to provide clean water for large numbers of people?
Answer:
Areas that have no or limited surface water or groundwater may choose to desalinate seawater or brackish water to obtain drinking water. Reverse osmosis is the most common method of desalination, although 85 percent of desalinated water is produced in multistage flash plants.[2] Large reverse osmosis and multistage flash desalination plants are used in the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. The energy requirements of the plants are large, but electricity can be produced relatively cheaply with the abundant oil reserves in the region. The desalination plants are often located adjacent to the power plants, which reduces energy losses in transmission and allows waste heat to be used in the desalination process of multistage flash plants, reducing the amount of energy needed to desalinate the water and providing cooling for the power plant.
Sea Water Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) is a reverse osmosis desalination membrane process that has been commercially used since the early 1970s. Its first practical demonstration was done by Sidney Loeb and Srinivasa Sourirajan from UCLA in Coalinga, California. Because no heating or phase changes are needed, energy requirements are low in comparison to other processes of desalination, though still much higher than other forms of water supply (including reverse osmosis treatment of wastewater).[
Sure can, Hospitals use them everyday for dialysis patients.
My hospital has a 5000 gallon Osmosis system.
Yes, they use an osmosis plant in the Cape Verde Islands. They desalinate sea water to supplement fresh water that they get rarely because they cut down the trees for firewood. The Danish gov. set it up with Aid and have also set up tree planting schemes.
I'm sure that it can be done because it has been done. The technique used will have to be reverse osmosis. You know in osmosis water molecules move from a region of high concentration to a region of low concentration across a semi-permeable membrane. Well in reverse osmosis water molecules move to a region of high concentration by the use of very high pressures. The pressure has to be greater than the osmotic pressure in order to overcome the natural tendencies of osmosis.
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