A Review of the Water Desalination Technologies

Potential of solar desalination in Israel and in its close vicinity

Hydrogen farm concept: A Perspective for Turkey

Reliable production of freshwater and energy is vital for tackling two of the most critical issues the world is facing today: climate change and sustainable development. In this light, a comprehensive review is performed on the foremost renewable energy-driven polygeneration systems for freshwater production using thermal and membrane desalination. Thus, this review is designed to outline the latest developments on integrated polygeneration and desalination systems based on multi-stage flash (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED), humidification-dehumidification (HDH), and reverse osmosis (RO) technologies. Special attention is paid to innovative approaches for modelling, design, simulation, and optimization to improve energy, exergy, and thermo-economic performance of decentralized polygeneration plants accounting for electricity, space heating and cooling, domestic hot water, and freshwater production, among others. Different integrated renewable energy-driven polygeneration and desalination systems are investigated, including those assisted by solar, biomass, geothermal, ocean, wind, and hybrid renewable energy sources. In addition, recent literature applying energy, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analysis is reviewed to establish a comparison between a range of integrated renewable-driven polygeneration and desalination systems.

A comprehensive review of the geothermal integrated multi-effect distillation (MED) desalination and its advancements

Desalination is probably the only means for fresh water supply to countries in decertified climate. The majority of GCC counties rely on desalinated water for fresh water supply to major cities. Over 70% of the desalinated water in the GCC comes from thermal desalination plants including Multi Stage Flash (MSF) and Multi Effect Distillation (MED). The new trend in the desalination plant in the GCC is 30% Reverse Osmosis (RO) and 70% thermal. However, these percentages vary from one to another country depending on feed water quality and expertise. For example, Oman Sea has lower salinity than the Gulf water and hence Oman uses more RO for desalination than MED and MSF. This decision is also driven by economy as RO process less energy intensive and hence the produced water is less expensive as compared to thermal plants. On the contrary, Qatar and Kuwait use more MSF followed by MED due to the high salinity and low quality feed water. This is also because trials of RO in both Qatar and Kuwait were not successful because of the problems of membrane fouling and restrict pre-treatment requirements due to the quality of the water intake.The advantages of RO over thermal technologies are well known in terms of lower energy consumption and the cost of produced water; but are not yet taken advantage of in the GCC zone. One of the reasons is blamed on high feed water salinity and bad water quality; other reasons such as lack of experience, red tides and reliability are contributed to the dominance of thermal plants. However, field experience showed that good pretreatment and optimized RO design may overcome the problems of high feed salinity and bad water quality. Several RO plants, such as Fujairah in UAE, are good examples of a working RO technology in the harsh water environment. Good RO design includes design and optimization of both pretreatment and post-treatment. Field experience showed that most of RO plants failure was due to inefficient pretreatment which resulted in providing low quality water to the RO membrane that caused fouling. Fouling, including biological and scaling, can be handled once an efficient pretreatment process is available. Recent advances in pre-treatment techniques include the combination of Forward Osmosis (FO) with RO among other methods. Recent studies by the authors including commercial implantations have shown that the combination of FO with RO addresses the most technical challenge of RO process and that is fouling, which results in lower energy consumption and less chemical additives. Experience showed fouling in FO process in reversible, i.e. can be removed by backlashing while fouling in conventional RO process is irreversible.In this study, the feasibility of integrating FO with RO process for the desalting of the Gulf water in Qatar is presented. The results are expressed in terms of specific energy consumption, process recovery, produced water quality, chemical additives and overall process cost.The implementation of RO for desalination is not only reducing the cost of desalination but also the environmental impact. More R&D should be done to provide useful data about RO application and suitability for the Gulf water. The R&D should be focused on laboratory to market development of RO technology using rigorous lab scale and pilot plant testing program.

Nowadays, the drinking water shortage is increasing, mainly due to rapid population growth, climate change, wasteful overuse of water, and pollution. Under the current circumstances, a quarter of the world's population will not have access to good quality drinking water. Thus, another solution must be adopted in areas with insufficient freshwater. One possible line is the desalination of seawater, one of the most practical solutions to solve the problem of drinking water shortage along the oil availability shore and continues to expand globally. Water produced may also be utilized for irrigation, reducing a region's reliance on imports, contributing to the local economy, and improving food supplies. However, this process is not a consequences-free procedure; it may cause several environmental and human health problems.The three most applied desalination technologies are reverse osmosis (RO), multi-stage flash distillation (MSF), and multi-effect distillation (MED). In this study, the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) of drinking water produced from seawater using these three technologies with fossil and renewable energy sources were investigated based on two methods: life cycle assessment (LCA) using SimaPro life cycle analysis software and carbon footprints. As a result, RO technology has significantly lower CO2 emissions than thermal technologies. The RO combined renewable energy is the most environmentally friendly; provides outstanding benefits in terms of human health and ecosystem quality. This technology may still evolve in the future to produce longer-lasting, cheaper membranes, and the energy requirements of this process are lower with applying modern energy recovery systems.

It is essential to investigate alternative energy solutions, especially those derived from renewable energy sources due to the growing global fossil fuel crisis. Renewable and sustainable energy sources have gained significant technological, economical, and environmental attention from researchers globally over the past decade. It has become a viable and sustainable alternative solution compared to conventional fossil fuels, providing cleaner, derived from naturally replenishing sources, with low gas emissions, and more environmentally friendly method for power production. Renewable sources include geothermal, solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass energy. These sources have various environmental impacts; however, these effects are significantly less compared to fossil fuel sources. As an example, fossil fuel-power plants require 35 times more land compared to geothermal power plants. Additionally, geothermal power plants emit approximately one-sixth of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by natural gas power plants. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the environmental impacts, specifically addressing water and air pollution (i.e., greenhouse gas emissions) associated with utilizing renewable energy sources for power production, which can serve as a crucial tool for policy, developers, and decision makers when planning the usage of renewable energy sources.

Potential contribution of biomass to the sustainable energy development

Desalination is highly suitable technique in current era of water crisis especially in arid and semiarid regions. The techniques are being adopted worldwide with a capacity to treat sea water (67%), brackish water (19%), river water (8%) and waste water (6%) which can further help to cope up with the condition of water crisis. Global desalination techniques (i.e. reverse osmosis (RO), multistage flash (MSF), multi-effect distillation (MED)) are currently utilizing around 75.2 TWh of energy per year. These techniques need a continuous supply of power for their proper functioning. In remote areas renewable energy resources are used as power supply for smooth working of plants. Among these energy resources nuclear energy is found to be highly efficient energy that can be used to treat sea water. The energy produced from nuclear reactors can be coupled with thermal desalination units and can further used to treat water. Results from DEEP analysis showed that PHWR-600 nuclear reactor coupled with reverse osmosis system (RO) is proved to be highly cost efficient and can provide high quality freshwater. The coupled process can provide fresh water at even more lowest cost as compared with nuclear reactors coupled with MED and MSF technologies.KeywordsDesalinationPressurized water reactor (PWR)Nuclear reactorRenewable energy (RE)Cost analysis

According to almost all estimates, significant investments in new renewable energy sources in Serbia are needed. Serbia has economically viable potentials of renewable energy sources (RES) (solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, biomass energy, geothermal energy, etc.), so the structure of the production mix in the electricity system should increasingly be based on renewable sources. In this paper, an attempt is made to answer the following questions: does Serbia need new production capacities, does Serbia need new production capacities from RES, and finally, which of the RES would be the most suitable at the moment? The paper assesses whether this is exactly the right moment to accelerate the process of energy transition in Serbia, as well as the opportunity to ensure a more sustainable growth and development through a faster transition to RES. It starts from the fact that increasing the production of electricity from RES, together with measures to increase energy efficiency and decarbonize energy production and consumption, is the backbone of the energy transition and at the same time the essence of Serbia's commitments by joining the Energy Community and accepting international climate agreements. The paper assumes that by increasing the efficiency of the energy sector and use of RES, European policy goals can be achieved in Serbia and that energy sector can be positioned as an engine of stability and sustainable economic development. Secondary effects will lead to increased sustainable employment, reduced public debt and increased competitiveness of the sector. Therefore, the energy transition should be seen as a development opportunity. The construction of large RES plants, especially large solar power plants in Serbia and joining the EU Green Deal, is certainly a signal that Serbia is well on its way to developing a modern, environmentally friendly, competitive and regionally integrated energy system. This will trigger the necessary investments in the modernization of the energy sector and enable the attraction of foreign direct investments. Achieving this vision requires decisive political action at the national and regional levels. Solar projects have the lowest levelized costs of produced kWh of electricity, they are the fastest to implement and they have the least environmental and social impact. Also, large installed capacity can be achieved through a series of large and medium-sized projects that would be territorially distributed in order to reduce the simultaneity of production.

Desalination plants, which provide drinking water for residents, rely on electricity generated by fossil fuels. However, the excessive use of fossil fuels leads to their rapid depletion and has detrimental effects on the environment. Thus, the use of renewable energy resources in water desalination has gained popularity. The current research investigates the integration of renewable energy systems with seawater and brackish water desalination technologies. In this regard, three primary renewable energy sources—wind, solar, and geothermal—are selected. Accordingly, a thorough investigation of the related research published and the trend of evolutions between 2013 and 2023 is carried out for Reverse Osmosis (RO), Multistage flash (MSF), and Multi-effect distillation (MED)-based water desalination facilities coupled with renewable energy sources. In our investigation, we particularly focus on performance indicators, energy efficiency, economic factors, and environmental effects. Also, the associated challenges of these hybrid systems, such as technological complexity, unpredictability, and intermittency, are addressed. Prospects for the future that address these issues and the prospects of using renewable energy in water desalination technologies are also covered.

Environmental degradation and depletion of natural resources make us think about how we can get electricity and heat from renewable sources. This article discusses the theoretical foundations and characteristics of RES, analyzes foreign experience and Russian achievements in the organization and development of RES. The analysis showed that on a global scale, the key to energy policy is the transition from environmentally friendly fuels to clean renewable energy sources. Renewable energy sources account for more than a quarter (26%) of global electricity production. Over the past 20 years, the world’s electricity production based on renewable energy has increased more than 10 times, solar and wind energy are developing. Thanks to comprehensive policy measures, investments in research and development in the field of alternative energy in Europe, the USA, etc., renewable energy technology has become widespread. Thanks to technological advances in this area, these countries are currently facing a reduction in the cost of electricity generated using renewable energy sources. Despite the world experience, the obvious advantages of renewable energy sources (inexhaustibility of energy resources, environmental friendliness, lack of a fuel component in the cost of energy produced) and their huge potential in Russia, the development of unconventional energy has not been adequately developed. The share of RES in electricity production in the country is 0.2%

Lack of clean water is one of the world’s most challenging concerns, and as pollution levels rise, the availability of clean water is rapidly diminishing, necessitating the development of an appropriate remedy. A possible solution to this problem is to transform salty or brackish water into pure water using a variety of desalination technologies. This chapter covers the fundamental techniques and contemporary advancements in thermal-based high-capacity desalination systems, such as multi-stage flash (MSF) evaporation, multi-effect distillation (MED), vapour compression distillation (VCD), low-temperature thermal desalination (LTTD), and others. In addition, the viability of a solar energy integrated desalination system as a long-term solution to the problem of water scarcity and also the case study of existing solar energy-based large-scale desalination has been presented. Improved thermal efficiency, performance ratio, and yield rate of the desalination system through hybridization of MSF, MED, and VCD processes among themselves as well as with the reverse osmosis (RO) process has been reported. Furthermore, it has been observed that the LTTD is one of the eco-friendly approaches to desalinating water on a large scale with the least level of carbon footprint and global warming potential (GWP). Besides that, the future direction of large-scale solar desalination development has been indicated.

The optimal technological choice for sustainable development lies in renewable energy sources (RES). However, the potential offered by RES utilization poses significant challenges for mobile technologies and everyday living. Despite extensive research and information highlighting the benefits of renewable energy, there remains considerable debate, and limited awareness persists. The advantages of RES are not fully comprehended, raising concerns about its consistent application. Regrettably, lack of knowledge and a fundamental understanding hinders effective dissemination. To gauge the attitudes of residents in regions where RES is employed, this study employed a questionnaire authored by the researcher. The study was conducted between June 2022 and January 2023, with a total of 12,428 participants completing the survey. The sampling method utilized an online form distributed via various social media channels and among local contacts of the authors in Poland, Sweden, and France. Gender allocation: 58% male and 42% female. Respondents shared their perspectives on ecology and disclosed their familiarity with RES utilization. Results indicate public skepticism regarding the adequacy of RES security measures and the level of knowledge for its effective use. Insufficient experts, limited social advocacy, and reliance on online sources contribute to a low level of awareness. In several EU countries, the absence of widely accepted and easily accessible information on renewable energy sources (RES) hinders knowledge sharing and adoption. Despite the EU's efforts to promote renewable energy through directives and subsidies, rural communities in these countries often lack adequate education and awareness about RES technologies. This gap in knowledge contributes to unfavorable perceptions, with some residents viewing renewables as unreliable or economically unfeasible options compared to traditional energy sources like coal or natural gas. Additionally, bureaucratic hurdles and inconsistent government policies further complicate the transition to renewable energy, discouraging investment and innovation in the sector. As a result, while the EU aims for a sustainable energy future, these barriers impede the widespread growth of RES and hinder progress towards climate targets. In Poland the study found that 76% of respondents expressed favorable perceptions of RES, indicating a general inclination towards adopting clean energy solutions. In Sweden, the analysis uncovered a high level of environmental awareness among participants, with 85% of respondents expressing concern about environmental degradation. Despite this awareness, 62% of participants reported reservations about the security and affordability of energy derived from renewable sources. Additionally, 48% of respondents expressed uncertainty or ambivalence regarding the environmental benefits of RES. In France, the research revealed similar concerns among respondents regarding the security and affordability of renewable energy. 59% of participants expressed reservations about the security of energy derived from renewable sources, while 53% cited perceived high costs as a barrier to adoption. Furthermore, 41% of respondents identified underdeveloped RES infrastructure as a hindrance to wider acceptance and utilization. The quantitative data highlights the complex landscape of renewable energy perceptions and attitudes in Poland, Sweden, and France. While there is a general awareness of environmental issues and a positive inclination towards clean energy solutions, concerns about security, affordability, and infrastructure remain significant barriers to widespread adoption. These findings underscore the importance of targeted interventions and educational efforts to address these challenges and promote sustainable energy practices across Europe. Renewable energy sources (RES) represent a critical avenue for sustainable development, offering a pathway to mitigate environmental degradation and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. This study investigates public attitudes, knowledge levels, and barriers to RES adoption in rural areas of Poland, Sweden, and France, highlighting the unique socio-economic and cultural factors influencing these regions. Conducted between June 2022 and January 2023, the research utilized an online survey, gathering responses from 12,428 participants across these countries. Respondents evaluated statements on environmental responsibility, RES knowledge and application, and perceived obstacles, using a five-point Likert scale. Key findings reveal that while environmental awareness is high, significant barriers persist in the form of limited knowledge, underdeveloped infrastructure, and perceptions of high costs associated with RES. In Poland, 76% of respondents expressed a positive view of RES but cited concerns about cost and security. Swedish participants demonstrated strong environmental awareness (85%), yet 62% voiced reservations about RES affordability and reliability. French respondents similarly highlighted concerns regarding infrastructure and costs, with 41% identifying underdeveloped RES systems as a primary hindrance. The study underscores the importance of targeted educational campaigns and policy interventions to bridge knowledge gaps and foster greater acceptance of RES. Tailored strategies addressing local barriers-such as financial incentives, community-based advocacy, and infrastructure investments-are essential to overcoming these challenges. By exploring diverse perspectives and barriers across the three countries, this research contributes valuable insights to the broader discourse on sustainable energy transitions in the EU.

Libya, like many arid countries, relies heavily on groundwater resources, which are increasingly scarce. With a 1950 km Mediterranean coastline offering an abundant but highly saline water source (35,000 38,000 ppm), seawater desalination is essential to meet national water demands. This study presents a techno-economic evaluation of three desalination technologies—Reverse Osmosis (RO), Multi-Stage Flash (MSF), and Multi-Effect Distillation (MED)—for a 1200 m³/day plant. RO design was conducted using ROSA software, while MSF and MED were modeled thermodynamically.RO requires significantly lower seawater intake (117 m³/h) compared to MSF (475.7 m³/h) and MED (200 m³/h), with corresponding plant efficiencies of 43%, 10.5%, and 25%. RO produces potable water (190 ppm TDS), while MSF and MED yield ultra-pure water (~50 ppm TDS), necessitating remineralization. RO operates without steam input, unlike MSF and MED (7.3 m³/h steam), and demands 235 kW of electrical power versus 245 kW (plus steam) for MSF and 50 kW (plus 7.5 m³/h steam) for MED. RO’s high brine pressure (53.5 bar) enables energy recovery, whereas MSF and MED discharge warm brine at low pressure, posing environmental challenges. Economically, unit water costs are $0.37/m³ for RO, $1.52/m³ for MSF, and $1.21/m³ for MED. Overall, RO is the most technically and economically viable option for this capacity under Libyan conditions.