State of art water desalination technologies using conventional and sustainable energy sources

Joint Authors

Shattat, Mahmud
Ghabayin, Said Muhammad Sad
Riffat, Faruque

Source

المؤتمر الدولي الهندسي الرابع : “نحو هندسة القرن الحادي و العشرين” : الذي نظمته كلية الهندسة بالجامعة الإسلامية-غزة يومي الاثنين و الثلاثاء الخامس عشر و السادس عشر من تشرين أول / أكتوبر 2012.

Publisher

Islamic University of Gaza Faculty of Engineering

Publication Date

2012-10-31

Country of Publication

Palestine (Gaza Strip)

No. of Pages

16

Main Subjects

Engineering & Technology Sciences (Multidisciplinary)

English Abstract

There is an acute shortage of potable water in many countries over the world especially in the middle east region.

Currently over one-third of the world's population lives in areas where people are unable to meet their water demand of fresh water [1].

Hence it has become viable that water desalination can be relied on it as a new sustainable water resource.

Nevertheless water is covering about three quarters of the planet’s surface, about 97.5 % of the earth’s water is salty water in the oceans and only 2.5 % is fresh water in ground water, lakes and rivers and this supplies most human and animal needs.

Tackling the water scarcity problem must involve better and more economic ways of desalinating seawater.

For instance, the survey of desalination technologies showed that the rapid developments in membrane desalination technology have made it cost competitive with thermal processes.

The current estimated water production cost for the world’s largest RO seawater desalination plant is $ 0.52 / m3 [48].

However the use of renewable sustainable energies for desalination becomes a reasonable and technically mature alternative towards a sustainable solution for water scarcity which could be suitable for different desalination process at viable cost and are uniquely suited to provide fresh water in the Gaza strip where water and electricity infrastructure is currently lacking.

This paper presents a comprehensive review of water desalination systems, whether operated by conventional energy or renewable sustainable energy, to convert saline water into fresh water.

These systems comprise the thermal phase change and membrane processes, in addition to some alternative processes.

Thermal processes include the multistage flash, multiple effects boiling and vapour compression, cogeneration and solar distillation, while the membrane processes include reverse osmosis, electrodialysis (ED) and membrane distillation.

It also covers the integration into desalination systems of potential renewable energy resources including solar energy.

The advantages and disadvantages, including the economic and environmental aspects, of these desalination systems are described.

Data Type

Conference Papers

Record ID

BIM-777198

• APA
• MLA
• AMA