Title: Hybrid Desalination Processes for Future Sustainability
Abstract:
The economics of seawater desalination processes has been continuously improving as a result of desalination market expansion. Presently, reverse osmosis (RO) processes are leading in global desalination with 53% share followed by thermally driven technologies 33%, but in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries their shares are 42% and 56% respectively due to severe feed water quality. In RO processes, intake, pretreatment and brine disposal cost 25% of total desalination cost at 30-35% recovery. We proposed a tri-hybrid system to enhance overall recovery up to 81%. The conditioned brine leaving from RO processes supplied to proposed multi-evaporator adsorption cycle driven by low temperature industrial waste heat sources or solar energy. RO membrane simulation has been performed using WinFlow and IMSDesign commercial softwares developed by GE and Nitto. Detailed mathematical model of overall system is developed and simulation has been conducted in FORTRAN. The final brine reject concentration from tri-hybrid cycle can vary from 166,000ppm to 222,000ppm if RO retentate concentration varies from 45,000ppm to 60,000ppm. We also conducted economic analysis and showed that the proposed tri-hybrid cycle can achieve highest recovery, 81%, and lowest energy consumption, 1.76 kWhelec/m3, for desalination reported in the literature up till now.
Biography:
Dr. Shahzad is working as a Sr. Lecturer in Mechanical and Construction Engineering Department at Northumbria University (NU), Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom. He worked as a Research Scientist in the Water Desalination and Reuse Center of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology from 2014-2019 before joining NU, UK.
He is working in hybrid desalination processes and renewable energy research. He won many international awards including, Sustainability Medal 2020, Global Innovation Award 2020, National Energy Globe Award Saudi Arabia 2021, 2020 and 2019, Excellence and Leadership Award 2019, IDA Environmental & Sustainability Award 2019. His research was highlighted at Yahoo business, Nature Middle East, Arab News and many other national and international platforms. He successfully commercialized his cooling and desalination processes through spin-off companies.
Dr. Shahzad holds 11 international patents. To date, he published 2 books, 17 book chapters, over 65 peer-reviewed journal papers and more than 110 conference papers. He also received three best paper awards in international conferences. He is an editorial board member of NATURE Applied Science journal and serving as a Guest Editor for topical collections. He is also selected as a regional coordinator for International Desalination Association Young Leader Program (IDA-YLP) for Middle East & Africa region. He is a member of many professional organizations namely; International Desalination Association (IDA), The International Water Association (IWA) and American Society of Mechanical Engineer (ASME).