Brackish groundwater treatment by reverse osmosis in Jordan

Jordan is characterised by an arid to semi-arid climate and its population is increasing at an annual rate of 3.6%. With such a high population growth rate and fast social-economical development, water demand and wastewater production are steeply increasing, and the gap between water supply and demand is getting wider. Furthermore, the constraints for water resources development are also rising due to high investment costs and water quality degradation due to over-exploitation of aquifers. Desalination of Red Sea water by reverse osmosis (RO) and/or brackish groundwater desalination by nanofiltration or RO might be technically and economically viable to cope with water scarcity and overcome the water deficit in Jordan. The technical-economical feasibility of brackish groundwater treatment by RO for potable water production was investigated in this work. Brackish groundwater samples were collected from the Zarqa basin, Jordan, and characterised in terms of pH, conductivity, total solids, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, and volatile solids. The water samples were pre-treated through a microfiltration cartridge (5 μm pore diameter) in order to eliminate the suspended matter. A pilot plant equipped with a FilmTec RO membrane (SW30-2521) was operated at 20–30 bar, 40°C, natural pH and up to a water recovery ratio of 77.5%. The results showed that RO is actually efficient since it highly reduced the content of organic and inorganic matters present in raw waters (rejections >98.5%) at a relatively affordable price (0.26 €/m 3). This study contributes to the development of efficient technologies to produce affordable potable water in Mediterranean countries where the threat of water shortages is a severe problem.