Seawater desalination

In countries where water resources are scarce, there is increasing demand for the conversion of seawater or brackish water into fresh water for drinking, irrigation and industrial applications.

Desalination can be carried out in a number of ways for a range of applications. But the result is always the same: fresh water is produced from brackish or seawater.

A desalting unit separates saline water into two streams: one fresh water stream with low concentration of dissolved salts and a concentrate or brine stream containing the remaining dissolved salts.

A variety of desalination technologies have been developed over the years, which can be either thermally or mechanically/electrically driven.

Thermal

  • Multi-Stage Flash Distillation (MSF)
  • Multi Effect Distillation (MED)
  • Mechanical Vapour Compression (MVC)

Membrane

  • Reverse Osmosis (RO)
  • Electrodialysis (ED)