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On the feasibility of ocean brine pool power stations
Author(s) -
Arias Francisco J.,
De Las Heras Salvador
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of energy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.808
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1099-114X
pISSN - 0363-907X
DOI - 10.1002/er.4708
Subject(s) - pressure retarded osmosis , brine , brackish water , buoyancy , osmotic power , environmental science , osmosis , forward osmosis , petroleum engineering , environmental engineering , oceanography , engineering , reverse osmosis , chemistry , geology , membrane , salinity , mechanics , biochemistry , physics , organic chemistry
Summary The demonstrated existence of vast brine pools in a number of places in the ocean basin around the world offers an interesting opportunity to the production of power from ocean, which has not been yet considered. The attractiveness of these vast deposits of brine lie in the fact that can be readily dissolved with the surrounding top waters extracting the spontaneous osmotic mixing energy released. In addition, osmotic engines can pumped out the brackish streams by buoyancy without the add of pressure exchangers (PEXs) as is required in current pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) technology and then simplifying significatively the overall process. Utilizing a simplified physical model, a first estimation for the density of power per unit of membrane area was calculated.