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Commercial Desalination Technologies

An Overview of the Current Status of Applications of Commercial Seawater Desalination Processes

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Seawater Desalination

Part of the book series: Green Energy and Technology ((GREEN))

Abstract

The vast majority of commercial desalination systems utilise one of four desalination processes: reverse osmosis (RO), multi-stage flash (MSF), multiple-effect distillation (MED) and mechanical vapour compression (MVC). A small fraction of desalination systems utilise electrodialysis (ED) technology to treat low salinity brackish water. Worldwide, RO desalination systems account for close to 50% of overall capacity. However, in the arid countries of the Middle East, the majority of desalination systems utilise evaporation processes: MSF, MED and MVC. Although, the energy requirement of evaporation processes is higher than that for membrane processes, distillation desalination systems will continue to dominate Middle East markets for some time to come, due to the large base of thermal desalination units, with proven high operational reliability and the convenience of their integration with power plants (dual purpose systems). With the growing trend to privatise the desalination market in the Middle East, the proportion of desalination capacity supplied by RO will increase, due to the better economics of the RO process. In this chapter, an up-to-date review of industrial units has been performed in order to present the most common features of industrial operating units. This review includes typical design parameters, operating conditions and process performances. Moreover the developments that have taken place over the years are presented, along with examples of recent installations and their production capacities, performance parameters and locations.

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Abbreviations

BOOT:

Bulid-Own-Operate-Transfer

BWRO:

Brackish Water Reverse Osmosis

MED:

Multiple Effect Distillation

MED-TVC:

Multiple Effect Distillation – Thermal Vapour Compression

MSF:

Multi Stage Flash

MSF-BR:

Multi Stage Flash – Brine Circulation

MSF-OT:

Multi Stage Flash – Once Through

MVC:

Mechanical Vapour Compression

RO:

Reverse Osmosis

SWRO:

Sea Water Reverse Osmosis

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, 13060, Safat, Kuwait

    Hisham Ettouney

  2. Tetra Tech-Infrastructure Services Group, 10815 Rancho Bernardo Road, Suite 200, 92127, San Diego, CA, USA

    Mark Wilf

Authors
  1. Hisham Ettouney
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  2. Mark Wilf
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Correspondence to Hisham Ettouney .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipto. Ingegneria Chimica dei, Università Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo, 90128, Italy

    Giorgio Micale

  2. Dipto. Ingegneria Chimica dei, Università Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo, 90128, Italy

    Lucio Rizzuti

  3. Dipto. Ingegneria Chimica dei, Università Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Palermo, 90128, Italy

    Andrea Cipollina

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Ettouney, H., Wilf, M. (2009). Commercial Desalination Technologies. In: Micale, G., Rizzuti, L., Cipollina, A. (eds) Seawater Desalination. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01150-4_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01150-4_4

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-01149-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-01150-4

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