Selection of Materials for Building Desalination Plants

Abstract

The primordial method to prevent, avoid and/or mitigate the deterioration of desalination plants (DP) materials is the selection of chemical and mechanical resistant materials to the DP operation conditions. Three different types of saline waters (SW) are treated in DPs: sea water, brackish water (BW) and brines, a byproduct that showed be disposed to avoid ecological problems. A DP is a complex, organized structure managing physicochemical processes: compression, filtration, evaporation, condensation, and circulation, involve diverse equipment, e.g. pumps, pipelines, turbines, heat exchangers, deaerators, storage tanks, valves, control and flow instruments. Metallic, plastic and composite materials are applied for the manufacture of these equipments. The surface of DP equipment should be kept clean and smooth applying sanitation regulation to prevent sealing and fouling difficulties. It is convenient to attach a corrosion technician at a DP to manage a corrosion laboratory, to expose corrosion test specimens of new materials and to control the corrosive factors of the DP fluids, to avoid expensive damaging corrosion occurrences. Modern DPs are built from correctly selected CRA and CRM. Application of recognized and approved technology of corrosion protection and control should provide prolonged equipment service life and freedom form corrosion. Correct operation and maintenance of a DP will assure the efficiency and economic profitability of the desalination industry (DI) rand provide prolonged equipment service life and freedom from corrosion.