Chapter 1 - Introduction to Desalination

Abstract

Desalination is the process of removing dissolved salts and minerals from saline water (such as seawater, brackish water, etc.). The main goal of the desalination process is to produce freshwater for the purpose of drinking, irrigation, or industrial usage. The other outcome of this process is brine (sometimes called concentrated feed or concentrate), which is mostly rejected to the environment in the case of seawater desalination application. In some industrial applications, such as mineral refineries, however, both the concentrate and freshwater production from the evaporation units are valuable and reusable in the process. In fact the concentrate can be more valuable than freshwater in those applications. This chapter briefly explains the history of desalination processes, the world's water shortage situation, and the importance of desalination processes to overcome this problem. The major types of desalination techniques and their pros and cons, the energy consumption, and the environmental impacts of desalination processes will also be explained in this chapter.