Desalination

INTRODUCTION
“Terrifying water crisis faces India; most cities to run dry” screams a recent World Bank
report. By the year 2020, says the report, most major Indian cities will run dry. Given the state of
the monsoon this year, it would appear that the World Bank report has come true almost a decade
earlier.

India's supply of water is rapidly dwindling as is the case with many other countries of the world.
Climate change is expected to worsen the situation by causing erratic and unpredictable weather,
which could drastically diminish the supply of water coming from rainfall and glaciers. With
such difficult times staring us in the face, Desalination of sea water seems like the best possible
solution to our water woes.

WHY DESALINATION?
Availability of fresh water has been the main centre of growth of civilisation. However, there is a
lot of inequality existing on earth, which needs to be artificially corrected through incorporation
of technologies such as thermal or membrane desalination.

With the growth of world population the need of fresh water has also increased substantially
which has resulted in growth of desalination installation as well. Logically the desalination
activities are concentrated on those parts of the earth where availability of water is scarce. This is
precisely the reason why more than 80% of desalination plants are located in the water scarce
Middle East region.

Unequal water distribution also exists within our country and fresh water desalination technology
is getting concentrated more on water scarce areas such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.
Besides producing desalted water for human consumption and Industrial requirement, these
technologies are also found to be advantageous in the recovery of water from waste streams.

DESALINATION METHODS
A desalting device essentially separates saline water into two streams: one with a low concentration of
dissolved salts (the fresh water stream) and the other containing the remaining dissolved salts (the
concentrate or brine stream). The device requires energy to operate and can use a number of different
technologies for the separation. The various desalting processes are listed below:

Major Processes
Thermal
Multi Stage Flash Distillation (MSF)
Multiple Effect Distillation (MED)
Vapour Compression Distillation (VC)
Membrane
Reverse Osmosis (RO)
Electrodialysis (ED)
Minor Processes
Freezing
Membrane Distillation
Solar Humidification
In the last decade, membrane processes have developed very quickly, and most new facilities use
reverse osmosis technology. Membrane processes use semi-permeable membranes and pressure
to separate salts from water. Membrane systems typically use less energy than thermal
distillation, which has led to a reduction in overall desalination costs over the past decade.
Desalination remains energy intensive, however, and future costs will continue to depend on the
price of both energy and desalination technology

Economics
A number of factors determine the capital and operating costs for desalination: capacity and type
of facility, location, feed water, labor, energy, financing and concentrate disposal. Desalination
stills now control pressure, temperature and brine concentrations to optimize the water extraction
efficiency.

Nuclear-powered desalination might be economical on a large scale. But, critics will point to the
high costs of desalination technologies, especially for developing countries, the impracticability
and cost of transporting or piping massive amounts of desalinated seawater throughout the
interiors of large countries, and the byproduct of concentrated seawater, which some
environmentalists have claimed "is a major cause of marine pollution when dumped back into
the oceans at high temperatures.
While noting that costs are falling, and generally positive about the technology for affluent areas
that are proximate to oceans, one study argues that "Desalinated water may be a solution for
some water-stress regions, but not for places that are poor, deep in the interior of a continent, or
at high elevation. Unfortunately, that includes some of the places with biggest water problems."
and "Indeed, one needs to lift the water by 2000 m, or transport it over more than 1600 km to get
transport costs equal to the desalination costs. Thus, it may be more economical to transport
fresh water from somewhere else than to desalinate it.

In places far from the sea, like New Delhi, or in high places, like Mexico City, high transport
costs would add to the high desalination costs. Desalinated water is also expensive in places that
are both somewhat far from the sea and somewhat high, such as Riyadh and Harare. In many
places, the dominant cost is desalination, not transport; the process would therefore be relatively
less expensive in places like Beijing, Bangkok, Zaragoza, Phoenix, and, of course, coastal cities
like Tripoli(capital of Libya). After being desalinized at Jubail, Saudia Arabia, water is pumped
200 miles (320 km) inland though a pipeline to the capital city of Riyadh.

Israel is now desalinating water at a cost of US$0.53 per cubic meter. Singapore is desalinating
water for US$0.49 per cubic meter. Many large coastal cities in developed countries are
considering the feasibility of seawater desalination, due to its cost effectiveness compared with
other water supply options, which can include mandatory installation of rainwater tanks or
stormwater harvesting infrastructure.