Reverse osmosis for water purification and reuse in the biotechnological industry: Process design, operation and economic guidelines

In this work, a generic hierarchical computer-aided framework for techno-economic assessment of resource recovery plants for biotechnological process streams is proposed. The framework consists of five main steps that can evaluate, develop and implement a resource recovery project from concept to implementation through the systematic analysis of economic potential, technology availability and readiness as well as comprehensive net present value analysis.

The application of the framework is demonstrated through a case study from the biotechnological industry where the objective was to reduce the hydraulic load on a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), thereby investigating opportunities for process water reuse. In this case, a recovery unitis studied, where purification and concentration generates large volumes of wastewater.

Reverse osmosis (RO) could ensure that the desired drinking water quality could be achieved and would enable re-use of the water in the production site for different economic purposes.