Assimilable organic carbon (AOC) is a key predictor for membrane biofouling in seawater desalination reverse osmosis (SWRO). Microbial fuel cells have been considered as biosensors for the detection of biodegradable organics. However, the presence of dissolved oxygen (DO) is known to completely suppress the signal production (i.e., current) of a typical MFC. This study describes AOC detection i...

While over 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, most of it is unusable for human consumption. Freshwater lakes, rivers and underground aquifers represent only 2.5 per cent of the world’s total freshwater supply. Unfortunately, in addition to being scarce, freshwater is also very unevenly distributed. The United Nations has compared water consumption with its availability and ...

Fresh water is required to sustain life. However, the world is facing a global challenge to reliably supply its population with safe water due to shortages stemming from population growth, climate change, contamination of available fresh water supplies, and public policy. Presently, the United Nations estimates that one third of the world’s population ( 2.4 billion people) is living in water-st...

Increasing global demand for fresh water is driving the development and implementation of a wide variety of seawater desalination technologies. Entropy generation analysis, and specifically, Second Law efficiency, is an important tool for illustrating the influence of irreversibilities within a system on the required energy input. When defining Second Law efficiency, the useful exergy output of...