Objective: To evaluate, from technical, economic, and socio-environmental perspectives, two structural alternatives designed to mitigate water scarcity scenarios in the Camboriú River Basin and adjacent watersheds (Santa Catarina, Brazil): a seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant and a multipurpose floodable park. Theoretical framework: The study is grounded in the concepts of water security, water governance, Nature-Based Solutions, grey infrastructure, and multicriteria decision-making approaches applied to water resources planning in coastal basins under anthropogenic pressure and climate variability. Method: A multicriteria analysis model was applied, integrating technical, economic, and socio-environmental indicators. Variables were weighted by experts and local water governance stakeholders using ordinal scales and a magnitude–importance matrix for environmental impact assessment. Results and discussion: Results indicate that the floodable park shows better economic performance and relevant socio-environmental benefits but faces significant territorial constraints and structural interferences. The desalination plant achieved superior technical performance and a more homogeneous socio-environmental profile, particularly due to continuous water production and reduced pressure on freshwater sources. The integrated assessment identified desalination as the most strategic alternative under severe scarcity scenarios. Research implications: The findings support regional water planning processes and provide decision-making support for public managers responsible for water security in urbanized coastal basins. Originality/value: The study advances knowledge by comparatively assessing green and grey infrastructure within a single, replicable multicriteria framework, contributing to hybrid decision-making strategies in water resource management.

Enhancing the energy efficiency for energy-intensive seawater desalination technologies is imperative to sustainably mitigate water scarcity while reducing carbon footprints. This work presents a transformative advance in reverse osmosis desalination technology by fundamentally redefining the long-standing trade-off between energy efficiency and water production efficiency. Through the synergistic integration of bio-inspired ultrapermeable membrane module with state-of-the-art batch reverse osmosis, we demonstrate unprecedented performance-achieving a specific energy consumption of 1.68 kWh m-3 while delivering an average water flux of 95 L m-2 h-1. This represents a 33%-58% reduction in energy demand and a 5-fold improvement in water flux compared with conventional seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants (2.5-4 kWh m-3 and 15 L m-2 h-1), challenging the prevailing assumption that increased membrane permeability offers only marginal efficiency benefits. This work can further guide the development of advanced membrane materials and energy-efficient desalination technologies, with potential applications in desalination and zero/minimal liquid discharge systems.

The Gaza Strip faces a dual challenge of severe freshwater scarcity and chronic electricity shortages, constraining the operation of critical infrastructure such as seawater desalination plants. This study investigates the design and feasibility of integrating a solar photovoltaic (PV) system into the Deir El-Balah seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant to enhance sustainability, reduce dependency on external electricity supplies, and minimize environmental impacts. Using the Helioscope simulation tool, both on-grid and off-grid scenarios were evaluated to assess system performance under local solar conditions. The optimized design requires 2,663 Canadian Solar HiKu CS3W-415P modules with Enphase M250 inverters, yielding a total installed capacity of 1.11 MWp and an AC output of 639 kW. Modules were allocated across rooftop structures and ground-mounted plots to maximize land-use efficiency. The system can meet the plant’s daily demand of approximately 1,100 kWh, thereby reducing reliance on fossil fuels and mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. Beyond technical performance, the integration of solar PV offers strategic benefits, including cost savings, improved energy security, and alignment with global sustainability agendas. The findings highlight the potential of renewable-powered desalination to contribute to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 6, 7, and 13) while advancing resilience and energy–water security in resource-constrained regions.

Integrated techno-economic modelling and analysis of a wind-powered seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant with hydrogen storage as a backup system

Benthic diatoms are sensitive indicators of environmental conditions at the seabed. In this study, benthic diatom communities at two brine outfall sites of reverse osmosis (RO) seawater desalination plants in Larnaca and Dhekelia, Cyprus, were investigated using a classical, microscopy-based approach and environmental DNA metabarcoding. In general, the diversity of diatoms measured by both methods (microscopy and eDNA metabarcoding), increased by distance from the brine discharge. Increased TOC and nutrient enrichment at brine outfalls contributed to decreased diatom diversity at the Larnaca outfalls, but the diatom diversity at Dhekelia was not driven by abiotic factors. The diatom communities at the outfalls were shown to be distinct and showed temporal variation across the sampling seasons with eDNA metabarcoding, but this was the case only for Dhekelia with microscopy. The results highlight the effect of local biogeography and different brine mixing methods on diatom diversity. The results revealed that conventional morphological methods and eDNA metabarcoding rarely leads to similar conclusions. However, the complementary results emphasise that more information can be derived when combining the methods for biodiversity impact assessments.

Surface seawater intakes are popular method in most of seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plants which pose fouling-sensitive membranes. Seawater characteristics, especially those near ports, and residential and commercial areas, can be strongly affected by climatic conditions, topology, and human activities such as dredging, fishing, sea traffic, and sewage discharge and consequently are related to the designed pretreatment method and its cost. Therefore, choosing the right location for a SWRO desalination plants is essential to use feed water of appropriate quality and with minimum risk of change. In this research, influence of the dredging process in the Shahid Beheshti port (phase 2) on the characteristics of surface seawater has been investigated as intake water of SWRO desalination plant. Parameters such as temperature, TDS, silt density index (SDI), pH, and chlorophyll a were studied. The results indicate significant changes in some water characteristics in locations very close to the dredging activity, and this is not good news mainly for membrane processes. High amount of SDI and chlorophyll a (as fouling and biofouling indicator) will imply the high fouling possibility near the dredging activity places.

Evaluating physico-chemical and biological impacts of brine discharges for a sustainable desalination development on South America's Pacific coast.

This study investigates the potential for energy reduction in a full-scale Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant through hybrid integration with Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO). A pilot test using a 60 m2 PRO membrane kit helped determine key operating parameters, including draw solution (DS) pressure and resulting dilution fluxes. Subsequently, a full-scale analysis was conducted with 650 m2 of PRO membrane area. The integration demonstrated up to 12.56% reduction in specific energy consumption under optimized conditions. Energy savings were found to correlate positively with lower feed pressures, higher brine availability, and optimal dilution rates, while being negatively impacted by pressure losses and high DS-to-FS flow ratios. The study confirms the viability of PRO-SWRO hybridization as a method for enhancing desalination energy efficiency, and highlights areas for further optimization in membrane design and hydraulic configuration.

Specific energy consumption of seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants using machine learning

Seawater reverse osmosis desalination (SWROD) powered by renewable microgrid offers a sustainable pathway to meet community freshwater demand. However, optimizing off-grid system remains challenging due to the intermittency of solar and wind resources, and the variability of water consumption. This study develops a hybrid battery-tank storage model integrated with microgrid for SWROD operation to balance surplus renewable energy and deficit water demand. A fuzzy-genetic algorithm (FGA) minimizes the levelized cost of water (LCOW) with optimal component sizing while satisfying reliability constraints defined by the loss of water supply probability (LWSP). Mamdani fuzzy logic for multi-criteria decision-making comprises 27 rules implemented in MATLAB and utilizes the coefficient of variation to adaptively tune the GA parameters. A case study in Saudi Arabia evaluates six configurations based on five decision variables: SWROD capacity, water tank, PV panel, wind turbine, and battery storage. Results show that incorporating water tank significantly lowers LCOW by reducing reliance on battery storage while maintaining system reliability. Among the evaluated configurations, the PV/Wind/Battery/Tank topology proves to be the most cost-effective in terms of community-scale water supply, achieving an LCOW of 1.2004 $/m³. In contrast, systems lacking tanks or relying solely on wind exhibit higher LCOW, excess renewable energy and unmet water demand with reduced reliability factor. Project sensitivity analyses further reveal that water demand variability exhibits a stronger influence on LCOW than solar irradiance or wind speed. Overall, the proposed framework demonstrates the techno-economic viability of standalone renewable-powered desalination systems, enabling cost-effective and reliable freshwater supply for coastal communities.

Comprehensive analysis of energy saving and high-quality permeate production strategies for a large-scale seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant with diverse process configurations and external resource utilization

The construction of the New Galala City besides great mining (e.g., konoozmisr) and Seawater Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plant projects in the semiarid Gulf of Suez region of Egypt increases the demand for groundwater resources. So, the current research provides integrated stratigraphical, hydrogeochemical, and geophysical studies to investigate the shallow groundwater aquifers in Wadi Araba area on the western side of the Gulf of Suez. The stratigraphic column starts with pre-Cambrian basement rocks which are non-conformably overlain by sedimentary succession of Phanerozoic Erathem. A detailed land magnetic profile has been conducted and processed to estimate the aquifer’s geometrical parameters. This includes the subsurface spatial extension and thickness to delineate the prevailed subsurface structures in the study area. Lithostratigraphically, these aquifers are represented by the Paleozoic- lower Cretaceous siliciclastic-dominated sediments of the Nubia Group and fractured carbonate-dominated facies of the upper Cretaceous Galala Formation. Lithological characters, sedimentary facies (fluvial to shallow and open marine), microfacies types, and diagenesis processes (e.g., compaction, cementation, dissolution, and fracturing) are the main factors that affect the quality of the shallow aquifers in the study area. The main microfacies of the studied aquifers are quartz arenite, subarkose, sublitharenite, mudstone/wackestone, and packstone/grainstone. These facies are characterized by different primary and secondary porosities. According to the water sampling standard methods, nineteen groundwater samples were collected from the available hand-dug wells and springs from the Nubian sandstone aquifer and the Upper Cretaceous aquifer, respectively. Inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP–MS), titration, spectrophotometer and a flame photometer were used to obtain a complete chemical analysis. The results of hydrochemical analyses indicated that total dissolved solids (TDS) and concentrations of major ions as well in the lower Cretaceous aquifer increase toward the Gulf of Suez and in general higher than that of springs of the Upper Cretaceous Aquifer. The predominant factors influencing groundwater chemistry include seawater intrusion, evaporation, mineral alteration, dissolution of fossils, and ion exchange. Groundwater in the study area is unsuitable for drinking except in one sample and moderately suitable for irrigation with caution for higher salinity in samples located near the Gulf of Suez.

Harnessing solar and wind power for sustainable seawater desalination: A multi-criteria geospatial suitability analysis

ANN based-model for estimating the boron permeability coefficient as boric acid in SWRO desalination plants using ensemble-based machine learning

A comprehensive evaluation of the temporal and spatial fouling characteristics of RO membranes in a full-scale seawater desalination plant

Nowadays, brine produced in the Reverse Osmosis (RO) seawater desalination plants is a significant and largely untapped source of critical minerals and metals, which is usually discharged into the seas as wastewater. As a front face stage in the brine mining process, nanofiltration (NF) membranes can be used to separate brine stream into monovalent and multivalent ion-rich streams. Since high separation factors are required in seawater RO brine, polyelectrolyte multilayers with Layer-by-Layer (LbL) technique were used in this study to modify commercial polyamide NF membranes and improve their performance. Two common polyelectrolytes, poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC) and poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) were coated onto two poly-piperazine polyamide NF membranes (NF270 and Desal-5 DL). The effects of the bilayers number and the outer layer charge on membranes’ performance were studied using two crossflow filtration setups with two different membrane sizes to find the membrane with the higher monovalent/multivalent separation factor. Desal-5 DL membrane coated with 5.5 bilayers provided the highest selectivity factors for mono/multivalent cations (> 21), the highest average rejection of multivalent cations group (about 95.7%) for short-term experiments. Another interesting result was the increase in water permeance of the Desal-5 DL membrane after it was coated with 5.5 bLs (indicating more than 20% improvement in pure water permeance). In addition, the stability test with brines at 20 bar showed that this membrane was stable over an extended period of filtration (22 hours) with an even higher selectivity factor of 34 and multivalent cations rejection of 97.7% on average.

Optimization of sustainable seawater desalination: Modeling renewable energy integration and energy storage concepts

Pilot study of emerging low-energy seawater reverse osmosis desalination technologies for high-salinity, high-temperature, and high-turbidity seawater

Background: For many years, seawater desalination technique has been operational to deal with water scarcity. In Boujdour region, located near the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Morocco, most water drinking is produced by a reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant. The permeate conductivity prediction is used to evaluate the performance of desalination plants. Objective: The present paper focuses on the modeling and comparison of the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) for the prediction of permeate conductivity for a one-year period. Methods: Six input variables are considered, including turbidity, temperature, pH, feed conductivity, feed flow, and transmembrane pressure (TMP). Firstly, the MLR identifies the most important variables influencing the permeate conductivity with the aim of developing a regression model for the dependent and independent parameters. Secondly, the ANN method is examined to analyze the performance of desalination plant. A study of the effect of the number of neurons and the number of hidden layers on the efficiency of the neural network has been made. Results and Conclusion: Results confirm that the MLR and ANN models forecast the permeate conductivity with a suitable coordination coefficient of the real and predicted values. ANN model has been successfully tested for reliability with a correlation coefficient R2 of 99.097% and a mean square error (MSE) of 0.002607.

Selective lithium separation from desalination concentrates via the synergy of extractant mixtures