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Reverse osmosis desalination plant in Barcelona, Spain. Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. [1] One example is soil desalination. This is important for agriculture.
Multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) is a water desalination process that distills sea water by flashing a portion of the water into steam in multiple stages of what are essentially countercurrent heat exchangers. Current MSF facilities may have as many as 30 stages. [1]
Sea-water RO (SWRO) desalination requires around 3 kWh/m 3, much higher than those required for other forms of water supply, including RO treatment of wastewater, at 0.1 to 1 kWh/m 3. Up to 50% of the seawater input can be recovered as fresh water, though lower recovery rates may reduce membrane fouling and energy consumption.
RO is the most common desalination process due to its efficiency compared to thermal desalination systems, despite the need for water pre-treatment. [39] Economic and reliability considerations are the main challenges to improving PV powered RO desalination systems. However, plummeting PV panel costs make solar-powered desalination more feasible.
In CDI, the energy cost per volume of treated water scales approximately with the amount of removed salt, while in other technologies such as reverse osmosis, desalination energy scales roughly with volume of treated water. This makes CDI a viable solution for desalination of low salt content streams, or more specifically, brackish water.
Schematic of a multiple effect desalination plant. The first stage is at the top. Pink areas are vapor, lighter blue areas are liquid feed water. Stronger turquoise is condensate. It is not shown how feed water enters other stages than the first. F - feed water in. S - heating steam in. C - heating steam out. W - Fresh water (condensate) out.
Reverse osmosis is a common process to purify or desalinate contaminated water by forcing water through a membrane. Water produced by reverse osmosis may be used for a variety of purposes, including desalination, wastewater treatment, concentration of contaminants, and the reclamation of dissolved minerals. [1]
Modern Water has deployed forward osmosis based desalination plants in Gibraltar and Oman. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] In March 2010, National Geographic [ 7 ] magazine cited forward osmosis as one of three technologies that promised to reduce the energy requirements of desalination.