Definition
Water Desalination is the conversion of sea water into potable water.
Desalination is a process commonly used in desertic regions without access to rivers, lakes, or ground waters as viable water source for populations.
Removing the salts and other minerals from seawater will be the only source of potable water for 15% of the world population by 2025.
Comments
The process to produce clean water from saltwater is a large consumer of energy. More or less 3kWh per cubic meter, around 15 times more than the energy required for river water treatment.
Different processes exist to treat saltwater, the main technologies are:
- Reverse Osmosis
This is the most used process for water desalination worldwide as it is the less energy intensive. The concept is to pressure saline water on a semipermeable membrane which will let the water molecules flow through while retaining the mineral components. - Thermal Distillation
Electricity or fossil energy is used for the heating of salty water, generating steam without salts that is later cooled to obtain clean liquid water. - Flash Evaporation
Flash evaporation is the generation of steam by exposing the salt water to a brutal pressure drop. The salt water is thus vaporized by repeating the drop, vapor which is later cooled to form clean water. - Solar Evaporation
Solar Evaporation is a process in pilot phase with promising results which aim to recreate and concentrate the natural evaporation. A transparent dome is installed with mirrors on the top of a saline water pool to concentrate the heat and generate steam. The steam is later converted into clean water.
Water Desalination Market
Water Desalination experienced a sharp decrease in energy consumption over the last years, yet the main challenge concern the scraps. In fact, the outputs of Water Desalination is not only clean water but brine, solid salt deposits and in some cases cleaning chemicals.
All of these components are harmful for the seawater, meaning projects now require post water treatment units to be harmless for their environment.
The 2020s will experience an acceleration in the number of projects for Water Desalination and Water Treatment. Acceleration which will gain even more momentum later mainly due to the growing population worldwide.
And of course, you can count on Project Smart Explorer to guide you on these projects: www.projectsmartexplorer.com
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