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A map of desalination plants around the world, by size and technology. Reproduced with Elsevier License permission n. 4965830049121 [12].
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Desalination is commonly adopted nowadays to overcome the freshwater scarcity in some areas of the world if brackish water or salt water is available. Different kinds of technologies have been proposed in the last century. In this paper, the state of the mainstream solutions is reported, showing the current commercial technologies like reverse osmo...
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Thermal desalination is yet a reliable technology in the treatment of brackish water and seawater; however, its demanding high energy requirements have lagged it compared to other non-thermal technologies such as reverse osmosis. This review provides an outline of the development and trends of the three most commercially used thermal or phase chang...
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... In that spirit, the central premise of this research is to evaluate the practice of using desalinated water from different angles, most notably the environmental and socioeconomic implications associated with this practice, to unveil how and to what extent this technology could be incorporated into the water planning and management scheme of semi-arid and arid regions. The focus on sustainability complements other review papers that focus more on the technological (e.g., Subramani and Jacangelo 2015;Curto et al. 2021) or economic (e.g., Karagiannis and Soldatos 2008) sides of desalination. The covered topics are as follows: (I) a general outlook on the progression of desalination technology over time; (II) an overview of the known or potential environmental concerns concerning this practice; and (III) a critical analysis of the social acceptability of desalination. ...
For centuries, desalination, in one way or another, has helped alleviate water scarcity. Over time, desalination has gone through an evolutionary process influenced largely by available contemporary technology. This improvement, for the most part, was reflected in the energy efficiency and, in turn, in terms of the cost-effectiveness of this practice. Thanks to such advancements, by the 1960s, the desalination industry experienced notable exponential growth, becoming a formidable option to supplement conventional water resources with a reliable non-conventional resource. That said, often, there are pressing associated issues, most notably environmental, socioeconomic, health, and relatively recently, agronomic concerns. Such reservations raise the question of whether desalination is indeed a sustainable solution to current water supply problems. This is exceptionally important to understand in light of the looming water and food crises. This paper, thus, tends to review these potential issues from the sustainability perspective. It is concluded that the aforementioned issues are indeed major concerns, but they can be mitigated by actions that consider the local context. These may be either prophylactic, proactive measures that require careful planning to tailor the situation to best fit a given region or reactive measures such as incorporating pre- (e.g., removing particles, debris, microorganisms, suspended solids, and silt from the intake water prior to the desalination process) and post-treatments (e.g., reintroducing calcium and magnesium ions to water to enhance its quality for irrigation purposes) to target specific shortcomings of desalination.
... So, desalination technologies can be considered a promising response to the worldwide crisis of supplying freshwater. Desalination processes based on technologies used to produce freshwater are divided into phase changebased, filtration, and crystallization desalination processes [6]. Reverse osmosis (RO) (63 %), Multi-stage flash (MSF) (18 %), and Multi-effect distillation (MED) (7 %) technologies have the highest capacity of desalination in the world [7]. ...
There is an urgent call for more sustainable water desalination technologies to secure the supply of the ever-increasing freshwater demand while lowering the dependence on fossil resources, mitigating GHGs and pollutant emissions, and hindering aquatic ecosystem degradation. In this regard, this research proposes a novel integrated system composed of a seawater source heat pump, multi-effect desalination, and pressure retarded osmosis, which utilizes seawater thermal energy as a renewable heat source to drive the system. Energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and environmental (4E) analyses are performed. Sensitivity analyses are conducted to determine the effective parameters of the system's performance. Besides, single objective optimization is applied for different modes to ascertain the most optimal operating condition of the system. According to the results, the heat pump condenser has the largest share in exergy destruction with 29 %. After that, the expansion valve with 12 %, the compressor with 11 %, and the seawater heat exchanger with 8 % are in the next rank. PRO membrane modules and heat pump compressor with 100 % and 60.3 % present the highest exergoeconomic factors, respectively, while heat pump condenser and seawater heat exchanger yield the lowest values with 0.33 % and 2.48 %, respectively. Comparing the proposed system results in its optimum state with conventional MED plants reveals that the system is capable of producing freshwater at an 80 % lower price and a 15 % decrease in carbon dioxide emissions. Integration of the PRO unit downstream of the MED process has led to a reduction of brine salinity and temperature from 51.89 to 39.4 g/kg and 38 to 32 ℃, respectively.
... Desalination is the process of removing salts and other minerals from seawater to ensure its safety for human consumption. There are two main categories of desalination processes: thermal processes and membrane processes [4,5]. In thermal desalination processes such as multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED), seawater is heated to create vapor, which is then condensed to produce freshwater. ...
... However, MD is not without its faults and limitations, as one of the main barriers of MD is in its fouling or scaling, which can greatly affect its efficiency in the long term. Comparatively, MD is also slower than its other counterparts, and it usually produces a lower flux rate than other separation processes [10]. ...
... Generally, MD has several different types that each operate based on the mechanism in which the permeate is extracted. However, the most commonly used technique is direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) [10,11]. DCMD has been considered a promising technology for the treatment of high-salinity impaired water. ...
This study assesses the effects of different polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) particle sizes and concentrations on the performance of dual-layer membranes in direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD). Specifically, particle sizes of 0.5 µm, 1 µm, and 6 µm were systematically evaluated at concentrations of 0 wt%, 2 wt%, 4 wt%, and 6 wt%. Comprehensive analyses, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), liquid entry pressure (LEP), contact angle, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), atomic force microscopy (AFM), permeate flux, nitrogen gas permeation, and salt rejection, were employed to characterize the membranes. Under conditions of a feed temperature of 70 °C and a salt concentration of 8000 ppm for a 24 h duration, the results clearly indicated that a 0.5 µm PTFE particle size combined with a 6 wt% concentration exhibited the highest performance. This configuration achieved a permeate flux of 11 kg·m 2 /h and a salt rejection rate of 99.8%. The outcomes of this research have significant implications for the optimization of membranes used in DCMD applications, with potential benefits for sustainable water treatment and energy conservation.
... Many cogeneration facilities where the thermal energy needed to desalinate water are also used to generate electricity. The most common method for pumping brackish water through membranes while utilizing electrical energy is reverse osmosis (Figure 1) [10,11]. ...
... Benthic creatures are buried in the discharge sites as a result of this process, which also intensifies coloring, reduces light penetration, and raises turbidity. If discharged to surface water without treatment, the cleaning solutions and their additives, as well as the acidic (pH 2-3) and alkaline (pH [11][12] solutions are detrimental to aquatic marine life. ...
... Direct -desalination, where thermal desalination takes place in the same device, and indirect solar desalination, where the plant is divided into the solar collector and the desalination system, are the two types of solar water desalination systems [11]. ...
The background of water desalination is covered in this chapter, along with an analysis of the environmental issues the desalination industry faces and suggestions for how to address them, to close the gap between the growing demand for water for all purposes and the natural water resources’ finite availability since the early 1970s. While a few number plants established in desert locations desalinate brackish and saline groundwater, most plants built in coastal areas desalinate seawater. Desalination of water has detrimental effects on both marine and terrestrial habitats. Desalination plants also deal with issues such as corrosion, sedimentation, membrane fouling, and scale formation, the disposal of rejected brine from coastal or inland desalination facilities and its harmful impacts on the ecosystems of the marine environment and groundwater. Focus should be placed on achieving zero-brine discharge, incorporating solar-pond technology, using renewable energy sources in desalination, and supporting research and development in the field of water desalination in order to reduce the negative effects of the desalination industry on the nation. Desalination still has difficulties in managing its waste products and minimizing its energy requirements in order to avoid negative environmental effects.
... sources of a dependable water supply [4]. This process involves the extraction of salt from water, making it suitable for diverse uses such as agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, and daily household needs [5,6]. Highlighting the immense promise of this technique, the United Nations put forward that saltwater desalination can augment our water reserves beyond what the natural hydrological cycle can offer. ...
... Highlighting the immense promise of this technique, the United Nations put forward that saltwater desalination can augment our water reserves beyond what the natural hydrological cycle can offer. Addressing the escalating need for freshwater, the primary strategies being adopted are desalination through thermal methods and membrane-based separation techniques [5]. Digging deeper into these methods, two prominent processes emerge: reverse osmosis (RO)-a membrane-based technology, and multistage flash distillation (MSF)-a heatdriven purification approach [7]. ...
The need for reliable, state-of-the-art environmental investigations and pioneering approaches to address pressing ecological dilemmas and to nurture the sustainable development goals (SDGs) cannot be overstated. With the power to revolutionize desalination processes, artificial intelligence (AI) models hold the potential to address global water scarcity challenges and contribute to a more sustainable and resilient future. The realm of desalination has exhibited a mounting inclination toward modeling the efficacy of the hybrid nanofiltration/reverse osmosis (NF–RO) process. In this research, the performance of NF–RO based on permeate conductivity was developed using deep learning long short-term memory (LSTM) integrated with an optimized metaheuristic crow search algorithm (CSA) (LSTM-CSA). Before model development, an uncertainty Monte Carlo simulation was adopted to evaluate the uncertainty attributed to the prediction. The results based on several performance statistical criteria (root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE)) demonstrated the reliability of both LSTM (RMSE = 0.1971, MAE = 0.2022) and the LSTM-CSA (RMSE = 0.1890, MAE = 0.1420), with the latter achieving the highest accuracy. The accuracy was also evaluated using new 2D graphical visualization, including a cumulative distribution function (CDF) and fan plot to justify the other evaluation indicators such as standard deviation and determination coefficients. The outcomes proved that AI could optimize energy usage, identify energy-saving opportunities, and suggest more sustainable operating strategies. Additionally, AI can aid in developing advanced brine treatment techniques, facilitating the extraction of valuable resources from the brine, thus minimizing waste and maximizing resource utilization.
... They are the key drivers of desalination techniques and are driven by thermal to nuclear energy. [1][2][3]. Significant developments have occurred in the past few decades regarding membrane desalination [4][5][6][7][8][9]. Membrane preparation and modification results in effective applications and coatings are of great importance to the membrane orientation. ...
... Commercial water desalination technologies can be classified into two types: membrane-based or thermal-based technologies [39]. Further desalination technologies are in various research and development stages [40]. In thermal desalination, of which distillation is the most conventional technology, part of the water is evaporated and then recondensed, resulting in a condensate that is free of salt and most other impurities. ...
As a secondary energy source, hydrogen produced by water electrolysis is a promising way to sustainably use electricity generated from primary renewable resources. Thereby, hydrogen is not only a highly relevant feedstock for producing chemical products, such as fertilizers and platform chemicals, but also a valuable energy carrier that can be readily transported and stored. This study explores how transporting renewable hydrogen via pipeline from regions with high renewable energy potential to large consumer centers can help overcome current challenges in ensuring a climate-friendly renewable energy supply. To this end, this work assesses the environmental impacts of cross-border hydrogen supply chains relative to the attained operating hours of local hydrogen production and the required hydrogen transport distance via pipeline. Environmental hotspots along the hydrogen supply chain and the main parameters affecting the overall environmental impact were identified. Remarkably, an environmental trade-off emerges: the most suitable local conditions for producing renewable hydrogen need to be balanced against the distance of hydrogen transport to consumers. Nonetheless, the relevance of the transport distance decreases with an increasing share of renewable energies in the electricity mix for operating the compressor stations of the pipeline network. Considering the ongoing transition towards renewable power generation technologies, our results indicate that long-distance hydrogen transport via pipeline is environmentally justified provided that the share of renewable energies used to operate the compressor stations increases.
... Seawater typically has a salinity of 35 parts per thousand (ppt), whereas drinking water requires a salinity below 0.5 ppm [52]. Various techniques for desalination are in practice, including reverse osmosis, Multi-Stages Flash desalination, Multi-Effect Distillation, electrodialysis, ion exchange, and liquid-liquid extraction [53,54]. However, these methods are often expensive and may not be affordable for the general public. ...
The marine system is diverse and highly unexplored, thus providing ample opportunities for young researchers and entrepreneurs to dive into the oceans and build innovative technologies and products for sustainable living. The present review summarizes various commercial and research-based entrepreneurship scopes that could be fruitful for self-reliance and the betterment of nature and humankind. The review also highlights missing areas that need more innovations to utilize marine resources for a better future sustainably.
... Various desalination processes[33]. ...
... Status of commercial desalination techniques[35].Fig. 2. Different desalination methods using RE resources[33]. ...
This study investigates the challenges and opportunities of desalination with renewable energy resources in the Middle East. Middle East countries are facing severe water shortages, and have the lowest level of access to freshwater, because most of the available water resources in that area are salty. Economic and population growth in that region has increased the demand for freshwater and led to over-harvesting of groundwater resources. Seawater desalination is considered a potential candidate to meet different water needs in the Middle East. Various desalination technologies have been used in this area, and their energy sources have often been provided from non-renewable sources. The presence of rich fossil resources in these countries and the lack of economic justification for the use of renewable energy resources have prevented their fast growth for desalination applications. In the Middle East, thermal desalination using fossil fuels accounts for 75% of seawater desalination and the remaining 25% is membrane-based. In 2016, that year, the share of renewable energy in seawater desalination was only 1%. The Middle East has 39% of the total desalination capacity worldwide. By 2040, the share of renewable energy in seawater desalination in the Middle East is expected to increase significantly. The reduction of the costs of renewable energy technologies, and the reduction of conventional energy reserves and their environmental effects, will be an incentive to invest in the use of renewable energy for desalination.
