The core desalination technology of the platform: a semi-permeable membrane driven by pressure, with recovery, salt rejection, energy and concentrate all derived by real engines.
- Active
- Available
Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis BWRO
RO applied to low-salinity groundwater or reuse water: lower osmotic pressure allows much higher recovery and lower pressure than seawater.
Overview
RO applied to low-salinity groundwater or reuse water: lower osmotic pressure allows much higher recovery and lower pressure than seawater.
How it works
Separation mechanism and feed window. Feed TDS typically a few hundred to a few thousand mg/L. Hardness and silica dominate scaling; the osmotic pressure is low enough that recovery can be aggressive.
What the process produces. A permeate at low TDS with recovery limited mainly by the scaling species present.
Energy. Low to moderate — the main advantage over seawater.
Process sequence
Where this technology normally sits in a treatment train. The steps either side of it are documented in the Library as separate entries.
- Groundwater abstraction or reuse intake
- Pretreatment
- RO stage
- Post-treatment
- Product storage
Typical applications
- Groundwater desalination for municipal supply
- Water reuse and advanced treatment
- Process water for industry
Main equipment
- RO elements and pressure vessels
- Lower-pressure feed pump
- Well pump or transfer pump
- Antiscalant dosing and post-treatment
Key design parameters
The parameters an engineer actually sets, and why each one drives the design. EngiMetric does not assume any of them.
| Parameter | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Feed TDS | Sets osmotic pressure and therefore the achievable product quality. |
| Recovery | Can be far higher than SWRO; limited by hardness and silica saturation. |
| Silica saturation | The binding constraint on many groundwater RO designs. |
| Well or transfer yield | An allocation from demand, not a tested yield. |
Advantages
- Lowest specific energy of the RO family.
- High recovery where the chemistry allows.
- Often the lowest cost per cubic metre for a new supply.
Limitations
- High recovery concentrates hardness, iron and silica sharply.
- Groundwater chemistry varies with abstraction depth and must be measured, not assumed.
Engineering considerations
- Source capacity must be verified; an allocated duty flow is not a measured yield.
- Scaling screening matters more than energy in this case.
Status and EngiMetric support
Industry maturity and commercial status describe the technology itself. EngiMetric support and quantitative modeling describe what this platform does with it — and those two are read from the engineering registry at build time, so they cannot drift from the code.
- Engineering maturity
- Mature How established the technology is in the industry. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- Commercial status
- Established Where the technology sits in the market. Not an EngiMetric claim.
- EngiMetric support
- Active Derived from the execution registry: ro is registered as supported.
- Design engine
- Yes Whether the Plant Designer can carry this as a configured process step.
- Quantitative modeling
- Available Derived: 10 of 12 registered capabilities run a deterministic engine.
What EngiMetric computes
These capabilities are registered in the EngiMetric execution registry. Each one runs a deterministic engine, so every result is reproducible from the inputs you supply.
- RO permeate TDS calculatePermeateTds
- RO salt rejection calculateSaltRejection
- RO salt passage calculateSaltPassage
- RO water balance verifyFlowBalance
- RO concentrate flow calculateConcentrateFlow
- RO osmotic pressure calculateRoOsmoticPressure
- RO energy and specific power calculateRoEnergy
- RO concentration factor calculateConcentrationFactor
- RO scaling risk analyzeScalingRisk
- RO recovery calculateRoRecovery
Related tools
Every tool below exists and is live. EngiMetric does not duplicate a formula here — the calculation lives in the tool, and this page links to it.
- RO Recovery Calculator Product and concentrate split at higher recovery.
- RO Scaling Risk & Pretreatment Analysis Hardness and silica saturation screening.
- RO Energy & Specific Power Calculator Specific energy consumption for the brackish case.
Design this as a plant
Configurable in the Plant Designer as an RO stage with a brackish feed analysis.
Verified against the authoritative treatment model, which configures:
ro-stage