Economic Assessment of an Integrated Membrane System for Secondary Effluent Polishing for Unrestricted Reuse.docVIP

Water 2012, 4, 219-236; doi:10.3390/w4010219 OPEN ACCESS water ISSN 2073-4441 /journal/water Article Economic Assessment of an Integrated Membrane System for Secondary Effluent Polishing for Unrestricted Reuse Amos Bick 1, Leonid Gillerman 2, Yossi Manor 3 and Gideon Oron 2,4,5,* 1 The Department of Chemical Engineering, Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat-Gan 52526, Israel; E-Mail: amosbick@ 2 The Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Kiryat Sde-Boker 84990, Israel; E-Mail: gillerma@bgu.ac.il 3 Central Virological Lab., Sheba Medical Center, Tel-HaShomer 52621, Israel; E-Mail: yossi.manor@.il 4 The Department of Industrial Engineering and Management and the Environmental Engineering Program, Ben-Gurion University of The Negev, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel 5 The Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, Jerusalem College of Engineering, Jerusalem 96920, Israel * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: gidi@bgu.ac.il; Tel.:+972-7-659-6900; Fax: +972-7-659-6909. Received: 23 January 2012; in revised form: 17 February 2012 / Accepted: 20 February 2012 / Published: 5 March 2012 Abstract: Extra treatment stages are required to polish the secondary effluent for unrestricted reuse, primarily for agricultural irrigation. Improved technology for the removal of particles, turbidity, bacteria and cysts, without the use of disinfectants is based on MicroFiltration (MF) and UltraFiltration (UF) membrane technology and in series with Reverse Osmosis (RO) for dissolved solids removal. Field experiments were conducted using a mobile UF and RO membrane pilot unit at a capacity of around 1.0 m3/hr. A management model was defined and tested towards optimal polishing of secondary effluent. The two major purposes of the management model are: (i) to delineate a methodology for economic assessment of optimal membrane technology imp