Towards sustainable water solutions: Designing and evaluating solar-powered hybrid desalination systems

This study investigates the viability of hybrid desalination systems as a novel solution to mitigate water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The study examines multiple hybrid configurations, such as forward osmosis–reverse osmosis (FO–RO), nanofiltration–reverse osmosis (NF–RO), forward osmosis–nanofiltration (FO–NF), and reverse osmosis–nanofiltration (RO–NF). The study assesses the performance of these systems while incorporating renewable energy solutions, particularly solar energy and battery systems, to establish a hybrid configuration that is efficient and economically sustainable. Simulations performed in MATLAB and ANSYS provide a comprehensive analysis of key performance indicators (KPIs) including water recovery, salt rejection, water flux, and specific energy consumption (SEC). The NF–RO hybrid configuration exhibited the highest water recovery rate of 91 % and the lowest specific energy consumption of 0.328 kWh / m 3 among the tested systems, establishing it as the most energy efficient solution. In contrast, the FO–RO system, although advantageous due to osmotic dilution, demonstrated a significantly elevated SEC of 2.40 kWh / m 3 . The study's findings underscore the economic viability of the hybrid NF–RO desalination system, presenting a competitive production cost of 0.59575 $ / m 3 , thereby indicating its capacity to substantially lower water production expenses. This innovative method provides an economical and sustainable remedy for addressing water scarcity in off – grid and arid areas.