Abstract: Coober Pedy is a remote town in South Australia with abundant solar radiation and scarce and low quality water, where a reverse osmosis plant has been operating since 1967. This paper evaluates the feasibility of powering the plant with solar or photovoltaic (PV) panels whilst avoiding energy storage in batteries. Pilot tests were performed in October 2005 with a small scale PV-powere...

We analyze the general phenomenon of induced-charge electro-osmosis (ICEO), nonlinear electroosmotic slip generated when an electric field acts on its own induced charge around a polarizable surface, in the context of microfluidics. Simple ICEO flows are first observed around a platinum wire in a polymer microchannel. While convenient for scaling analysis of resulting flows, this geometry prove...

We derive a mathematical model of a nematic electrolyte based on a variational formulation of nematodynamics. We verify the model by comparing its predictions to the results of the experiments on the substrate-controlled liquid-crystal-enabled electrokinetics. In the experiments, a nematic liquid crystal confined to a thin planar cell with surface-patterned anchoring conditions exhibits electro...

We compared the rejection behaviours of three hydrophobic trace organic contaminants, bisphenol A, triclosan and diclofenac, in forward osmosis (FO) and reverse osmosis (RO). Using erythritol, xylose and glucose as inert reference organic solutes and the membrane pore transport model, the mean effective pore size of a commercial cellulose-based FO membrane was estimated to be 0.74 nm. When NaCl...

A headspace-solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) method has been developed for the simultaneously determination of 20 disinfection by-products (DBPs) in water samples from reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Selected compounds belong to different families including: trihalomethanes (THMs), halogenated acetonitriles (HANs), halogenated nitromethanes ...

Reverse osmosis (RO) technology has been widely applied to water treatment such as seawater desalination, and large RO plants are many in operation around the world. Moreover, much larger plants will be required to secure sufcient water resource in the near future because global water shortage and quality problems are still getting more serious. Mega-ton Water System pr...

Chromium (Cr) is the most important element used to leather industry is still considered to be the most important industries which pollute the environment by chromium metal. Removal of heavy metals dissolved at low concentrations in water and wastewaters is often a problem that can be solved in different ways. This paper describes a study conducted to determine the recovery of chromium from tan...