http://iaeme.com/Home/journal/IJMET 353 editor@iaeme.com International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJM ) ET Volume 10, Issue 11, November 2019, pp. 353-370, Article ID: IJM _10_11_030 ET Available online at http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=10&Issue=11 ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359 © IAEME Publication A REVIEW OF DESALINATION SYSTEMS USING THE REVERSE OSMOSIS TECHNIQUE Randy Ncube and Freddie L. Inambao* Discipline of Mechanical Engineering, University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9922-5434 * Corresponding Author Email: inambaof@ukzn.ac.za ABSTRACT Water is and has always been the source of life for humans, animals and every other living organism, but its availability is slowly diminishing by the day. Scarcity of potable and fresh water is a major concern the world over, especially in the Middle East and Africa. There is a need for new, energy efficient and eco-friendly ways of producing fresh water from the vast and abundant sources of saline and brackish water available. Desalination is one of the several ways which have been used to mitigate this problem, and Reverse Osmosis (RO) is generally taking over as the preferred technique of desalination because of its generally higher efficiency and better quality of water produced using generally lower energy. Review of many scholarly articles have shown that the limitations and concerns of using RO technique on water productivity are membrane fouling and high energy consumption in small scale plants. Therefore, efficient energy and membrane solutions are required. The main objective of this paper is to review current and already developed RO desalination methods, membranes and the mathematical modelling and optimization of RO systems using Genetic Algorithm. Keywords: Desalination, Reverse Osmosis. Cite this Article: Randy Ncube and Freddie L. Inambao, A Review of Desalination Systems using the Reverse Osmosis Technique. International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 10(11), 2019, pp. 353-370. http://iaeme.com/Home/issue/IJMET?Volume=10&Issue=11 1. INTRODUCTION ‗ ‘ ‗water Water crisis and scarcity‘ are the words on everyone‘s lips of late. The WHO states that about 1.2 billion people do not have access to safe and affordable water for their everyday use [1]. The most important reasons for water shortages are growing water demands from population increase, economic development, and increased per capita consumption of goods and services [2]. In South Africa the supply of water is limited, unfairly distributed, and climate change and the predominance of invasive alien plant species has a negative effect on it. Importation of water from Lesotho and from the Congo River offers a solution to the crisis but will prove to be very costly to consumers [3]. A huge percentage of the world‘s