Our new study on scaling mitigation in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination has been published in Desalination.
In this work, titled “Enhancing water recovery in reverse osmosis by mitigating membrane scaling using thermomorphic hydrophilicity base-induced precipitation (THBIP) pretreatment”, we investigate the efficacy of the novel switchable solvent pretreatment technique—THBIP—on scaling suppression in RO desalination of hard brackish feed waters. The innovation selectively removes hardness cations, calcium and magnesium. We showed that THBIP significantly increased water recovery yield (by >25%) and drastically reduced flux decline by over 70% compared to untreated feeds. With the intrinsic advantages of chemical recyclability, feed pH rebalancing, and compatibility with low-grade heat utilization, THBIP offers a more effective and sustainable solution for managing high-scaling RO feeds.
