Seawater Desalination

Access to sufficient quantities of water for drinking and domestic uses and also for commercial and industrial processes is critical to the health and well being. With the growth of the world population the availability of the limited quantities of fresh water decreases. From the 71% earth surface water, 97.4% is seawater and 2.6% is fresh water. With the advances of desalination technologies, seawater has become an interesting water source to cope with fresh water shortage. This process can be applied wherever a reliable source of water is needed.


Seawater is also reached in minerals which have market interest. With the large demand for salt in many geographical areas, producing salt. The most widely applied and commercially available technologies for seawater desalination can be divided into two types: membrane processes and thermal processes. Reverse osmosis (RO) and Nanofiltration (NF) are currently the leading seawater desalination solutions. The advances in key equipment (membranes, pumps, energy cost recovery device), turned the process energy efficient, resulting in a low investment cost (CAPEX) and low operational cost (OPEX). Nowadays, desalination has become a very affordable solution to cope with freshwater shortage typically in tropical as well as off-shore areas.


The reverse osmosis process can also be built with one or two passes, depending on the product water requirements and the seawater salinity and temperature. In most cases, 1 pass is sufficient to reach the EU drinking water standards, specially regarding the boron content (1 mg/L). To reach WHO boron guideline (0.5mg/L), a second pass might be necessary (Boron removal process). The energy recovery device is the key factor that determines the plant electrical costs. It must be chosen carefully based on local energy costs and environmental policies. Post - treatment and/or polishing steps are required to condition the water after the reverse osmosis membrane process to make it suitable for your application.


Brine disposal can be an environmental and economic issue in some areas where the fauna and flora are sensitive to local seawater salinity increase. Brine disposal should be studied and engineered case by case. The art of desalination is to determine and combine available technologies to optimize water production costs and quality. To adapt our Desalination Plants to your local needs, we offer containerized mobile units from Intake to Distribution up to a production capacity of 200 m3/h of desalinated water.


seawater-desalination


All type of water can be produced from a desalination plant:

  • WHO or EU drinking water
  • Irrigation water
  • Process water: Boiler feed water, cooling water
  • Demi or Ultrapure water

All type of natural seawater source can be treated:

  • Shallow Surface seawater
  • Deep seawater
  • Brackish river water
  • Beach well seawater