The role of desalination in bridging the water gap in Jordan

Both brackish water desalination and seawater desalination processes are well established and in common use around the globe to create new water supply sources. The farther the location of the source water from the ocean or seashore, the lower the salinity (TDS) of the water and the lower the osmotic pressure that needs to be overcome when desalinated water is produced. This is one of the major reasons that brackish desalination is often considered less costly than seawater desalination. A number of project considerations, however, indicate that seawater desalination can be beneficial and more cost-effective than brackish water desalination. To make a fair comparison, we need to properly compare all major aspects of both types of projects to define the best and most appropriate desalination technology. While brackish water has less feed water TDS, it is more challenging to dispose of the produced concentrate. Also, although brackish water desalination needs less energy to overcome osmotic pressure, it usually requires more energy to draw the water from the well than it takes to pump seawater from the open ocean intake. Another factor is that the temperature of the brackish well water may be lower than the temperature of ocean water, giving seawater desalination an advantage in energy demand. In comparing brackish to seawater desalination, these major aspects should be evaluated: (1) Locations of seawater and brackish water plants, relative to the major consumers of the desalinated water, (2) Transportation (pumping and disposal) costs of the feed water and produced water, (3) Potential colocation of a seawater plant with a large industrial user (e.g., power plant) of the seawater for cooling or other purposes, (4) Produced quality of brackish water and seawater desalination in terms of major minerals and emerging contaminants, (5) Sustainability of the water source: capacity and depth of the brackish water wells, as well as the type of soil. (6) Technical and economic aspects of produced concentrate disposal, (7) Permitting process costs for brackish and seawater desalination, and (8) The economics of both brackish and seawater desalination treatment processes: capital costs, operational and maintenance (O&M) costs, lifetime water cost, and total water cost (TWC). This paper discusses the major evaluation criteria and considerations involved in properly comparing the economic and technical aspects of brackish and seawater desalination to determine the more favorable desalination technology for a given desalination project.

Desalination of brackish water by nanofiltration and reverse osmosis

Impact of chemical composition of reject brine from inland desalination plants on soil and groundwater, UAE

Analysis of desalination alternates for phosphoric acid plant in Tunisia

Brackish water desalination using reverse osmosis and capacitive deionization at the water-energy nexus

This article deals with the desalination of seawater and brackish water, which can deal with the problem of water scarcity that threatens certain countries in the world; it is now possible to meet the demand for drinking water. Currently, among the various desalination processes, the reverse osmosis technique is the most used. Electrical energy consumption is the most attractive factor in the cost of operating seawater by reverse osmosis in desalination plants. Desalination of water by solar energy can be considered as a very important drinking water alternative. For determining the electrical energy consumption of a single reverse osmosis module, we used the System Advisor Model (SAM) to determine the technical characteristics and costs of a parabolic cylindrical installation and Reverse Osmosis System Analysis (ROSA) to obtain the electrical power of a single reverse osmosis module. The electrical power of a single module is 4101 KW; this is consistent with the manufacturer's data that this power must be between 3900 kW and 4300 KW. Thus, the energy consumption of the system is 4.92 KWh/m3.Thermal power produced by the solar cylindro-parabolic field during the month of May has the maximum that is 208MWth, and the minimum value during the month of April, which equals 6 MWth. Electrical power produced by the plant varied between 47MWe, and 23.8MWe. The maximum energy was generated during the month of July (1900 MWh) with the maximum energy stored (118 MWh).

In order to meet people's increasing demand for water, it is urgent to transform undrinkable water resources such as seawater and brackish water into water suitable for human use. Membrane distillation has become a water treatment technology with great development potential due to its advantages of high desalination rate, good water quality, high water recovery and low operating cost. It can effectively solve the problem of desalination of seawater and brackish water, and has broad application prospects in solving the shortage of fresh water resources. However, membrane fouling and polarization effect limit the performance of membrane distillation in seawater desalination. This paper briefly describes the working principle of membrane distillation technology, analyzes the formation mechanism of polarization effect and membrane fouling, and introduces the technical methods for enhancing the performance of membrane distillation. In addition, the future research direction of membrane distillation is prospected.

Israel is a country in the Near East consisting for 95% of the arid regions in which 60% of the territory are covered by the Negev Desert. Therefore, the water resources are scant here and formed mostly by atmospheric precipitations. In the period from 1989 to 2005 the average precipitations were 6 billion cu. m, of which 60–70% were evaporated soon after rainfalls, at least 5% run down by rivers into the sea (mostly in winter) and the remaining 25% of precipitations infiltrated into soil from where the greater part of water got into the sea with ground waters. In Israel there are two groups of water resources: surface and underground. Israel is not rich in surface waters. The natural reservoir of surface fresh water is the Kinneret Lake in the northeast of the country. It gets water from the Jordan River and its tributaries. The average annual amount of available water of this lake is around 370 million cu. m, which accounts for one-third of the country’s water needs and still higher share of the drinking water needs. The greater part of fresh waters (37% of water supply of Israel as of 2011) in this country is supplied from ground water sources. Owing to insufficiency of available natural resources, unevenness of precipitations by years and seasons and with the growth of the population and economic development the issues of provision with the quality drinking water of the population as well as agriculture and industry, rehabilitation of natural environment cause permanently growing concern. In view of the water shortage untiring efforts have been taken to improve the irrigation efficiency and to reduce water use by improving the efficacy of irrigation techniques and application of advanced system management approaches. Among the water saving technologies applied in Israel there are: drop irrigation, advanced filtration, up to date methods of water leak detection from networks, rainwater collection and processing systems. At the same time such measures as water flow measurements, policy of water price formation, changeover to cultivation of valuable crops, thermal water recycling, computer-based and remotely controlled irrigation are also applied. The search for new techniques of fresh water production is going on. Water saving is considered the most reliable and less costly method to increase water resources of the country, And this task is being accomplished in all sectors. In 1964 the National Water Carrier of Israel was constructed. The main task of this project is to achieve the reliable compensation of the difference between water income in various regions (north and south), in different seasons (summer and winter) and in different years (with sufficient and insufficient precipitations). In 1999 the Israel government initiated the long-term large-scale program of sea water desalination for production of drinking water for internal use. Reverse osmosis was adopted the basic technique for desalination of brackish and sea water. Currently there are five sea water desalination plants producing about 600 million cu. m of desalinated water per year which is equivalent to approximately 42% of the country’s drinking water needs. Israel adopted the General Plan of Water Economy Development for 2010–2050, which envisages complete coverage of water deficit by way of entire wastewater treatment and construction of additional sea water desalination facilities with a capacity to 1500 million cu. m by 2050. Any additional desalinated water that may become available in these years will be used for replenishing the water supply in Israel.

Sea water desalination becomes more and more important as the consumption of fresh water. Forward osmosis (FO) is a novel technology for sea water or brackish water desalination, where a most important device, semi-permeable membrane, are required low resistance, high selection and inexpensive. In this study, based on molecular dynamic simulations, we explored the performance of porous graphene as the semi-permeable membrane for sea water desalination. Fluorine (F) and nitrogen (N) are adopted to optimize the property of graphene pore. We found that although pure pore have highest water flux (indicating lower resistance), N modified pore has the best selection due to the high electronegativity of N atoms. The about 60 L/cm2/h water flux and 100% solute rejection ratio confirm the graphene with N modified pores is good candidate as a semi-permeable membrane for sea water desalination.

A series of thin‐film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes with incorporation of Laponite nanoclays (NC‐LAP) is prepared and demonstrated for brackish water and seawater desalination. It is the first attempt to use poly(ethylene glycol) 200 (PEG200) assisted Laponite as nanofillers to improve the performance of TFN membranes for reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination. The influence of NC‐LAP loading and PEG200 as the dispersant on membrane properties is investigated. An increase in NC‐LAP loading results in an increase in water permeability without sacrificing the salt rejection. At the loading of 0.3 wt%, the TFN membrane shows a water permeability of 2.7 L m−2 h−1 bar−1 (LMH bar−1) and a salt rejection of 98.18% for brackish water desalination at 20 bar and 25 ± 1 °C. This water permeability is 53% higher than the conventional thin‐film composite (TFC) membrane. A steady water flux above 35 LMH is obtained when using seawater as the feed at 50 bar and 25 ± 1 °C. The existence of PEG200 to effectively disperse NC‐LAP nanoparticles is essential to fabricate the NC‐LAP incorporated TFN membranes for brackish water and seawater desalination.

A methodology to investigate brackish groundwater desalination coupled with aquifer recharge by treated wastewater as an alternative strategy for water supply in Mediterranean areas

Urbanization, industrialization and rapid population growth in developing countries of the Arabian Peninsula are putting increasing pressure on local water authorities and water planners to satisfy the growing urban water and sanitation demands. In the Arabian Peninsula, water resources are limited, average rainfall is low and the seawater and brackish water desalination in addition to limited groundwater resources are the major water supply sources. The population increased from about 17.688 million in 1970 to 38.52 million in 1995 and is expected to reach 81.25 million in 2025. The urban population is expected to rise from 60% in 1995 to more than 80% in 2025. The domestic water demand is expected to rise from 2863 million cubic metres (MCM) in 1990 to about 4264 MCM in 2000 and 10580 MCM in 2025. In Saudi Arabia, the population increased by 143.6% between 1970 and 1995; and it is expected to reach about 40.426 million in 2025, with about 80% urban population. The domestic water demand in the Kingdom is expected to be about 2350 MCM in 2000 and 6450 MCM in 2025. Specialized agencies have been established for water production and distribution, and for wastewater collection, treatment and reuse. Special legislation has been introduced to manage water demands and to protect the interests of the community and its natural resources. Fifty-seven costly desalination plants have been constructed in the Peninsula on the Gulf and Red Sea coasts, as well as water transmission lines to transport the desalinated water to coastal and inland major cities. The seawater desalination unit cost is about US$0.70/m 3 for a large desalination plant with energy priced at world prices. More than $30 billion has been invested on water and sanitation projects. Present desalination production is about 46% of the total domestic demand, and the rest is pumped from deep and shallow aquifers. In general, fragmented legislation and institutional arrangements and low water charges have indirectly resulted in over-usage of domestic water, production of excessive quantities of wastewater, significant leakage, and enhancement of shallow water-table formation and rise in some cities. Facing the challenges of satisfying the growing urban water demands requires several essential measures such as: (a) introduction of new technologies to reduce water demands, and losses, and to enhance wastewater recycling and water conservation; (b) the updating of legislation to coordinate both responsibilities and actions among different water agencies; (c) the introduction of a strong and transparent regulatory framework to adopt different forms of water supply privatization, to reduce the costs of building, operation and maintenance of water and sanitation facilities, and to improve the level of services and billing, leakage and wastewater collection and treatment; (d) an increase in water tariffs to reflect the actual value of the water, and to enhance the awareness of public as to the value of water; and (e) development of short-term and long-term national water plans based on realistic water demand forecasting.

Fouling of high pressure-driven NF and RO membranes in desalination processes: Mechanisms and implications on salt rejection

Fresh water demand is growing drastically in many parts of the world. Desalination of seawater, brackish water, and waste water is one solution to meet the demands of fresh water. Currently, reverse osmosis (RO) desalination process is one of the best methods for the desalination process. In this study, a modified controller design is proposed for RO desalination system based on symbiotic organisms search (SOS) algorithm. A multivariable model of RO desalination plant is considered for experimentation. The RO system considered here is first decoupled using a simplified decoupling process to obtain two non-interacting loops. Then, a proportional-integral-derivative controller with second order derivative (PID-DD) scheme based on SOS algorithm is proposed for each loop to find optimal control parameters of the RO system. To design the PID-DD controller for each loop, integral of squared error (ISE) is considered as fitness function. Four other state-of-the-art optimization algorithms, namely, teacher-learner-based-optimization (TLBO), differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO), and artificial bee colony (ABC), algorithms are also tested for the considered system. To show competitiveness of the proposed SOS-based PID-DD controller, a comparative study based on time domain analysis is performed. Results show the SOS-based PID-DD controller is superior to other PID-DD controllers.

Experience with plate-and-frame ultrafiltration and hyperfiltration systems for desalination of water and purification of waste water