Trevi Systems

trevisystems.com

Trevi Systems is a progressive energy-efficient Forward Osmosis (FO) desalination company. Trevi System has developed an innovative and highly efficient Forward Osmosis (FO) process, in order to produce clean water from saltwater, brackish water, or industrial wastewater at a much lower cost and energy use as compared to Reverse Osmosis (RO) technologies. Rather than force water through a membrane as in RO systems, FO relies on osmotic pressure to draw water across the membrane. In the FO system, the “feed” solution or contaminated water is pumped to one side of the semi-permeable membrane. The “draw” solution, which has a high concentration of a specially designed chemical and a low concentration of water relative to the feed solution, is pumped to the other side of the membrane. The water molecules are attracted or pulled through the membrane via osmotic pressure – that is, the water molecules want to migrate from an area of high water concentration to one of low water concentration. Accordingly, water is pulled through the membrane using no energy, leaving the salts or other contaminants on the opposite side. The benefits of the Trevi FO system are numerous: it requires only a small fraction, of the electrical energy of current RO systems; it uses relatively low-cost waste heat or low-temperature heat to separate the draw chemical from the clean water; it can be customized to work under specific water conditions such as seawater, brackish water, municipal wastewater, or industrial wastewater; when used for desalination, the system can also be customized to produce brine streams of varying salt concentrations depending on the environmental requirements of the location; and it operates at ambient pressure, avoiding the extra costs of the high-pressure stainless steel plumbing required by RO systems, and the need for expensive high-pressure pumps.