OPTIMAL DESIGN OF WATER NETWORK INVOLVING SINGLE CONTAMINANT

Water minimisation via maximum water recovery has gained much attention for economic and environmental sustainability reasons. This work presents the development of a systematic technique to target freshwater consumption and wastewater generation via maximum water recovery for systems involving single contaminant. A generic linear programming model has been developed based on water network superstructure to achieve the maximum water recovery targets, for both mass transfer-based and non-mass transfer-based problems (i.e., global water-using operations). This model can also be used to solve water network design problem to simultaneously generate the minimum water targets and design minimum water network for global water-using operations. The approach is illustrated by using an urban case study involving a mosque and an industrial case study involving an acrylonitrile process. Significant water savings for both case studies are achieved, illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed approach