Controle preditivo generalizado aplicado a um processo de dessalinização por osmose reversa

Abstract

Considering the possible scarcity of potable water in the future, the Reverse Osmosis process appears as a promising solution capable of transforming salt water into potable water. This study presents the tuning and implementation of a generalized predictive controller to control and simulate a reverse osmosis desalination plant. The strategy proposes controlling the flow and conductivity of the water produced in the process by manipulating the pressure and pH of the system's feed water, being compared to a conventional proportional-integral-derivative controller. As simulation results, the proposed GPC presented better performance indices regarding the absolute error integral for 9 scenarios and equivalent for 2 of the 16 evaluated. As for the total variation of the control signal, another performance index, the GPC controller studied was better in 6 scenarios and equivalent in 2 of the 16 scenarios analyzed. It is concluded that the results showed that the proposed structure presents a faster disturbance rejection both in the flux and in the conductivity mesh and better performance indices for most of the analyzed steps.