ERI supplies energy recovery devices to world's largest desalination plant

Water management and desalination in Israel

Energy and water without carbon: Integrated desalination and nuclear power at Diablo Canyon

Supply of desalted water to remote arid zones

Brine discharged from seawater desalination plants impacts marine life by exposure to increased salinity and, in some cases, temperature. However, the responses of individual species to such stress remains poorly known yet their understanding is essential for assessing and predicting the impacts of seawater desalination plants. In this study, unialgal cultures obtained by the germling emergence method of 34 taxa representative of the Rhodophyta, Chlorophyta and Phaeophyceae seaweeds in the Arabian Gulf, and isolated from the vicinity of two large desalination plants in Kuwait, were subjected to increased temperature and salinity under experimental conditions in the laboratory. The dataset is complemented by measurements of seawater temperature and salinity obtained at increasing distances from the outfalls of desalination plants and along the Kuwaiti coastline including from two pristine areas, Boubiyan and Fintas. Chlorophyta, especially Ulva spp., and Phaeophyceae displayed remarkable tolerance against hypersaline and thermal stress, suggesting that this group can cope better with adverse environmental conditions. Members of the Rhodophyta were considerably more sensitive to temperature increases.

Energy optimisation of existing SWRO (seawater reverse osmosis) plants with ERT (energy recovery turbines): Technical and thermoeconomic assessment

This research analyses the feasibility of supplying a large size desalination energy demand by marine renewables. The case study is Las Palmas III seawater desalination plant, the largest desalination plant in the Canary Islands (Spain), which is located in the northeast of the island of Gran Canaria. Its average daily water production is 62,614 m³/day, consuming a total of 90,669.52 MWh/year. A constant energy production is needed for the optimal plant operation which raises the possibility of using different renewable technologies in order to reduce the energy fluctuations. In this case, the sea and its wind and wave energy resources are key technologies for supplying desalination plants near the coast. For this reason, different configurations have been simulated combining both technologies and analyzing their pairing in hourly terms to achieve a more stable energy production. The proposed methodology contemplates the identification of the hotspot for the technologies location in terms of environmental constraints and resource assessment (both wind and waves). The subsequent selection of the wind turbine and the wave converter and the energy coverage evaluation. Results tried to establish if the combination of offshore wind and wave energy improves the demand coverage in overall terms and in terms of seasonal match.

In recent years major coastal desalination plants have been constructed at various locations around Australia. Engineering geophysics has contributed to the successful completion of these major projects. During 2009-10 two of Australia?s largest desalination plants with a combined capacity of 370Megalitres/day (upgradable to 670Ml/day) were commissioned in Sydney, NSW and at the Gold Coast, Queensland at a total cost of approximately $A2.5 billion. Case studies at these desalination plants discuss aspects of the land, borehole and marine geophysical technologies that were applied during the feasibility and design phases of these projects. These technologies were used to investigate geotechnical conditions at the proposed plant sites and along the land and marine sections of the sea-water intake and brine outlet tunnels. These studies had a significant impact on the geotechnical risk assessments and the final design of these desalination plants and involved the use of electromagnetic, gravity and seismic methods. The case studies demonstrate the value of appropriate geophysics to large civil engineering projects.

Continuous corrosion monitoring in desalination plants

Water resources are becoming increasingly scarce due to population growth and global changes in weather patterns. Desalination plants that extract freshwater from brackish or seawater are already being used worldwide, with many new plants being developed and built. The waste product from the extraction processes has an elevated salt concentration and can potentially cause substantial impacts to local marine flora and fauna. The present study assesses the impact of saline waste from a 100 GL/year desalination plant on southern Australian temperate fish assemblages, using baited remote underwater video. The study compared four reference sites to the impact site (desalination outfall) and found no evidence that the saline waste was having a detrimental effect on fish assemblages in proximity to the outfall, with species diversity and abundance comparable to those observed at reference sites. However, species diversity and abundance varied across geographical location, protection from fishing pressure, and reef type. Our study is one of the few assessing the ecological impacts of saline waste discharged from a large desalination plant and shows no decrease in fish diversity or abundance, which is the response typically associated with the negative impacts of anthropogenic activities on fish assemblages.

Chapter 7 - Brine Disposal and Management—Planning, Design, and Implementation

This paper provides the overviews of technical way of traditional desalination technique which can be used for water treatment including ways of migrating the impacts of the desalination to the environment and avoiding some of the danger of environment to desalination. Technologies that were originally developed to desalinate water are widely applied in the countries to remove contaminants. Many of the present desalination technologies like distillation, membrane process, ion exchange process etc are used in present contest. Among them membrane separation process is widely used nowadays. This paper suggest the art of the technology which are widely used to desalinate water among which many of them can be used to remove the other contaminants other than salt. It also present the water resources management plant and point out the importance of desalination in order to give the satisfactory result in order to fulfill the increasing water demand. Seawater and waste water from the industries are two important water resources for the desalination plant. Desalination of the sea water accounts worldwide water production of 24.5 million cubic meters per day. Arabian countries use about 45% of the total production of desalinated water all over the world. The largest desalination plant in south Asia is the Minjur Desalination plant near Chennai in India which produces 36.5 million cubic meter cube of water per year.

The Barka desalination plant, commissioned in 2018, is the largest desalination plant in Oman. It has a capacity of 281 MLD with a reverse osmosis (RO) first-pass recovery rate of 46%. As part of the standard operator practice, a membrane autopsy was conducted to determine the cause of reductions in membrane performance. This study investigated fouled membranes (model No. SW30HRLE-440) from two different locations in the membrane rack. Various analytical methods were used to conduct the membrane autopsy. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy/energy-dispersive X-ray (FESEM/EDS) analyses of membrane samples showed major components of inorganic foulants. Moreover, black and salt-like crystals deposited on the membrane surface revealed significant carbon (C) components and oxygen (O), with a small amount of magnesium (Mg), chloride (Cl), sodium (Na), aluminium (Al), and calcium (Ca), respectively. A Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analysis revealed the presence of long-chain hydrocarbons, carboxylic acids/esters, carbohydrates/polysaccharides, and inorganic foulants. Thermogravimetric analyses (TGA) of the membranes showed a high initial weight loss due to organic and inorganic fouling. X-ray photoelectron (XPS) analyses further confirmed the presence of inorganic and organic foulants on the membrane surfaces. Bacteria identification results showed the presence of Bacillus cereus and Bacillus marisflavi. This paper offers a detailed analysis of the foulants present on the reverse osmosis membrane surface and sub-surface before and after a cleaning process.

World gears up to water shortages

Hamma Water Desalination Plant: planning and funding

New and innovative sea water intake system for the desalination plant at San Pedro del Pinatar