Environmental Impact and Technoeconomic Analysis of Hybrid MSF/RO Desalination: The Case Study of Al Taweelah A2 Plant

Abstract

Abstract A comprehensive review of hybrid systems for water desalination is presented in this chapter. The technoeconomic analysis and environmental impact assessment of a hybrid MSF/RO system has also been carried out as a case study. The production data of an existing MSF plant (Al Taweelah A2 plant in Abu Dhabi, UAE—total water production of 227,000 m 3 /day) are used for this case study. A detailed model of a parallel configuration, which takes sustainability factors such as process economics and CO 2 emissions into consideration, is developed for the hybridization. From the review, it was concluded that recent advances in hybrid desalination technologies have contributed to sustainable desalination in terms of environmental friendliness, lower energy consumption, and cost-effective desalination processes. The MSF/RO case-study model revealed significant reduction in water production cost, annual energy consumption, and annual gas emissions with $0.42/m 3 , 141.2 × 10 + 6  kWh, and 70,636.8 tCO 2 , respectively.