Evolution of Reverse Osmosis Technology As Evaluated By LCA

Clean water and energy are intimately intertwined. Water is required to make use of energy and energy is required to make use of water. A key technology that can be used to provide clean water is reverse osmosis (RO). Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a way to investigate, estimate, and evaluate the environmental burdens caused by a material, product, process, or service throughout its life span. In this research, LCA was used to understand and quantify the differences in potential environmental impacts for different generations of RO membranes from The Dow Chemical Company, used in two applications: boiler feed water from brackish well water, and water recovery from municipal wastewater treatment. The results show the importance of the membrane technology and the product use phase in the life cycle and of the membrane system.