Sharif Digital Repository

Reverse osmosis (RO) is by far the most widely used membrane desalination process worldwide. The RO process depends on the properties of semi-permeable membranes which allow the separation of water from a salt solution by applying external pressure higher than the osmotic pressure on the seawater. The main problem in membrane separation process is the fouling of the membrane walls, which decreases the permeate flux. Having spacer filaments in the feed channel has been proven to dynamically change the concentration boundary layer and preventing fouling. The impact of spacer configurations (cavity, zigzag and submerged) on the alleviation of concentration polarization and the enhancement of... 

Nowadays, water desalination is a widely-used method for producing clean and fresh water. Recent researches in this area have mostly focused on Reverse Osmosis technology which is one of the most efficient technologies in water desalination. A new idea to increase the efficiency of a recently-designed reverse osmosis membrane called “Honeycomb Carbon Nanotube Membrane” is presented through molecular dynamics simulation. Although in this study only the inlet area of the honeycomb structure which is a Y-shaped entrance, is modeled and studied, but obviously, any improvement in the membrane inlet, equals better results at outlet which means a more efficient desalination process. Present thesis... 

The use of superhydrophobic surfaces is one the most promising methods for reducing the friction and increasing the flow rate in fluid transfer systems. Since in such systems the surface structure plays a key role, in the first part of this study, the performance of the hierarchical nanostructures is explored. These nanostructures are inspired by the superhydrophobic surface of the lotus leaf. The flow is considered between two walls with hierarchical nanostructures and simulate the system via the molecular dynamics (MD) method. The size of the nanostructures and the distance between them have been studied to find whether a design with maximum flow rate exists. The nanostructures have two... 

Different parts of this research are focused on developing FO membranes and improving their performance. For this purpose, thin film composite (TFC) membranes with fixed composition of polyethersulfone/polyamide (PES/PA) have been used to investigate the effect of nanocomposites containing transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) on their performance. The support layer in all cases is PES, which is prepared through the phase inversion process and does not contain any nanofillers. The modification process takes place in the polyamide layer by dispersing the desired nanoparticles in the aqueous monomer solution necessary to form this active layer. Identification and characterization of... 

Water is essential for human life and other organisms. Increasing population and consequent increase in water consumption has made freshwater scarcity a global problem. Desalination of saline water sources is a long-term solution to this problem. One of the most challenging issues in desalination is the management and disposal of brine. Disposal of brine into the sea and surface waters is the primary solution for brine management. Due to the environmental problems caused by the discharge of brine into the sea and surface waters, the concept of zero liquid discharge has recently been considered. In this research, an economic study of reverse osmosis-electrodialysis-crystallization structure... 

In this study, two layer nanocomposite membrane of polyethersulfone (support layer) and polyamide (active layer) were prepared for the purpose of desalination of water by forward osmosis method. In order to take more advantage of this membrane, montmorillonite nanoparticles which had been modified by graphene oxide were placed in it. To bind the nanoparticle components together, at first, montmorillonite was functionalized by (3-Aminopropyl) triethoxysilane to increase its nucleophilicity, and for graphene oxide to increase its electrophilicity, thionyl chloride was added. The two compounds were mixed and stirred for 24 hours in the presence of triethylamine base by magnetic stirrer at 30°C... 

In this thesis, using superstructure concept, a method is presented to synthesize of new structures for thermal desalination processes along with their structural and operational optimization. The proposed superstructure is capable of producing various common (feed forward, backward, parallel cross feed) and non-common structures in evaporators, as well as in combination with flash stages and thermal vapor compressor. By using the GA (Genetic algorithm), the superstructure has been optimized to identify the optimal structures in both Iranian and international economic scales. Also comparisons were made between conventional structures at optimum state, to suggest superior structures at... 

Rapid preparation of a homogeneous mixture is essential for many chemical and biological applications, such as micro-scale biological-chemical agent detection, drug delivery, and DNA hybridization. Some mixing systems have a micro-scale geometry, which results in a very slow mixing process, mainly due to laminar flow in these systems. Mixing in a slow flow is performed only by molecular diffusion. In the absence of any disturbances, increased mixing is not possible simply by diffusion. Accordingly, a suitable and innovative method to improve mixing for such systems is required. Induced charge electro-osmosis is a new field of electro-osmotic flow, which performs better than conventional...