Dear Abdeljalil Chougradi

Good question,

Of the total global water, 94% is salt water from the oceans and the remaining 6% is fresh. You could use Aspen HYSYS or Aspen Plus (both are products from Aspen Technologies Corporation) to model and simulate the operation of a water desalination plant. You can simulate steady state or transient operation. However, it is difficult to find a software that simulate fouling/ scaling build up. You have to do some creative to work around this like manually changing the heat transfer coefficient in heat exchangers to mimic performance degradation due to scaling build-up on the heat exchanger tubes.

There is an urgent and increasing need for better provision of clean water of drinking quality on a worldwide basis. The lack of clean water is the direct cause of millions of deaths every year in poorer countries, while in most affluent countries the demand for such water is continuously increasing. Thus, the development of new means to produce drinking water is a high priority for international organisations, governments and research agencies.

Simulation models are built on Aspen Plus® platform as user defined unit operations for these two types of modules, respectively. Large scale modules for practical industrial applications are simulated and studied for the effects of design and operation variables, as well as the importance of heat and mass transfers of each phase. For each type of modules with heat recovery design, the response surface method (RSM) is applied to develop the performance-variables quadratic model, followed by the multivariable optimization. Optimal designs can realize separation efficiencies, defined as the ratio of water produced to the feed, of 8.2% and 5.8% for DCMD and AGMD, respectively.

The validated model is used to optimize the functional parameters of a desalination plant and in turn, enhance the recovery rate and product quality of the system. The model is suitable for brackish and seawater desalting applications specific to the climatic conditions of coastal. Aspen Plus is the process simulation software that was used for the modelling.

The advantages of Aspen Plus can be summarized as follows:

1. any combination of membrane processes with all other units already implemented in Aspen Plus is possible, including internal recycle streams

2. utilization of the physical property models and data bases of Aspen Plus is possible

3. cost and sensitivity analysis can be performed.

These benefits are demonstrated in detail for a membrane vapor recovery unit for the treatment of tank farm off ‐gas, for a two‐stage reverse osmosis plant for organic/‐organic separations and for a combination of distillation and pervaporation for the separation of a dimethyl carbonate/methanol mixture.

The innovative "Silent Alarm™" technology discussed in the attached article makes a giant and an unconventional leap in that direction by allowing for real-time detection, measurement and monitoring of membrane fouling and scaling.

To view the full publication "Real-Time Monitoring of Membrane Fouling", please see attached file.

Hoping this will be helpful,

Regards,

Prem Baboo

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877705815008620

http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ie502874c

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rafik_Karaman/post/Are_there_any_software_which_is_used_in_desalination_plant_to_monitor_fouling_and_scaling/attachment/59d6372979197b80779948a1/AS%3A391785156235267%401470420268254/download/Real-time+Montoring+of+Membrane+Fouling.pdf

Dear Prem Baboo,

Thank you so much for the detailed answer, indeed Aspen Plus contains a lot of features that I may need in my research, still, the university to which I'm affiliated doesn't have a license key, I wonder if there are any free softwares alternatives that may offer similar features for modelling membrane desalination circuits ?

Cordially.