A twelve-year history of large scale application of work-exchanger energy recovery technology

This paper traces the history of large-scale work-exchanger energy recovery systems from early concepts; the first seawater reverse osmosis application in 1975; through the present state of the art. Work-exchanger technology, while fairly simple in concept, has undergone a tremendous amount of evolutionary development to bring it to the commercial stage as currently applied to seawater reverse osmosis. Twelve years of continuous in-plant use is described.