Study of Reclaimed, Surface, and Ground-Water Quality

Due to their high cost, high-recovery and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) systems used in various industries are not currently used at any municipal sites. Because of increasing challenges to disposal of concentrate, these types of systems will, by necessity, eventually be applied in municipal settings. There is thus a need to develop realistic performance and cost analyses for high-recovery and ZLD processing schemes. The project evaluates the costs of commercially available volume minimization and ZLD processing schemes over a range of size, salinity, and water composition variables. In addition to identifying and characterizing processes and developing performance and cost projections, regulatory issues associated with use of the technologies have been identified and are discussed.

Originally funded as WERF project Reuse-02-08.