Environmental balance of salt production speaks in favour of solar saltworks

Abstract

Solar saltworks are most efficient converters of solar energy into an inorganic commodity. Conversion
 rate of solar radiation into removal of water vapour from the brine takes place with 45%
 efficiency. Solar salt requires only a fraction of man made energy compared with salt produced
 by solution mining and thermal evaporation. Advanced technologies for biological management,
 crystallisation, harvesting techniques and salt processing, allow production of solar salt 99.94%
 pure, which is comparable with purity of vacuum salt.
 Proper biological management of solar saltworks leads to brine containing less organics. Organic
 compounds in brine adversely influence the crystal growth habit, which results in inclusions of
 impurities inside the salt crystals. Advanced salt purification technology is able to completely remove
 impurities from the salt crystals incurring insignificant salt processing losses.
 About 60% of salt produced worldwide is consumed by the chemical industry. High quality solar
 salt used as feedstock in membrane cell chloralkali plants causes equally low contaminated effluent
 discharge from brine treatment as vacuum salt. Trace elements that may cause membrane
 damage, such as iodine, or those elements that are critical to chlorine purity, such as bromine,
 are present in smaller quantities in solar salt than in many salts originating from rock salt deposits.
 Bird watchers driving in jeeps through solar saltworks may not realise that the vast water fields
 hosting flamingos are not only beautiful but that they contribute towards the shift in the environmental
 balance in the direction of higher overall ecological benefit as well.