Water Desalination
Chapter 1 : Introduction
Dr. Tushar Kanti Sen
Chemical Eng. Department
King Faisal university
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Water Desalination
• Instructor Dr Tushar K Sen
Office Location Building no 11 – Office
no. 2043
Office Hours Open door policy
e-mail [email protected]
Lecture time Sun. Tues and Thursday.
9:15 – 10: 30 am
Lecture Location Building no. 11 – Room
no. 2014
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Evaluation/Assessment
• Quizzes (closed book) : (1 & 2 &3): 15%
• Mini-Project: 15%-released on 4th week
• Mid-Term Exam (closed book) ---30%-6th
week
• Final Exam (closed book)---40%
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Outlines
• Course information
• Water resources
• Definition/Back ground
• Operating process
• Types of desalination
• Grand Challenges
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Course Description
• Water sources and characterization, Water
chemistry, Water Treatment Processes. Scale
Formation problems and pretreatment
requirements. Desalination Processes: Thermal
Desalination Processes, Membrane Processes.
Post treatment of product water.
• Prerequisite: ChE 305 ( Mass Transfer)
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Textbook Reference
https://www.amazon.in/Fundamentals-Salt- https://www.amazon.com/Desalination-Water-Jane-
Water-Desalination-El- Kucera/dp/1118208528
Dessouky/dp/0444508104
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How Much Water is There?
Approximately 97.5 % of the world’s water is seawater.
Of the 2.5 % of the planet’s freshwater, approximately 80
% is in the form of polar ice and snow and 20 % is
groundwater, river and lake water, and air moisture.
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Only 0.5% of the total amount available is to be found in
lakes, rivers and aquifers.
This amount is poorly distributed across the globe.
About 40% of the world's population is suffering from
serious water shortages.
Seawater desalination provides the logical solution for a
sustainable, long-term management of the growing water
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What is Desalination?
• Desalination is the process of removing dissolved salt
and other minerals from seawater to create freshwater
• Sea and brackish water are typically desalinated using
two general types of water treatment technologies:
thermal evaporation (distillation) and reverse osmosis
(RO) membrane separation.
https://www.swcc.gov.sa/arabic/Pages/Home.aspx
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General Process diagram of Desalination Pant
Water Desalination Post Fresh
Pre treatment
feed Unit treatment water
brine
Filtering Large particles CO2 absorption
Screening Limestone (CaCO3)
Floatation pH adjustment
Sedimentation Chlorination
coagulation Re-mineralization
Chlorination
UV treatment
pH adjustment
Types of desalination technology
• Thermal desalination
Multi-stage flash (MSF)
Multiple-effect distillation (MED)
vapor-compression (VC)
• Membrane desalination
Reverse Osmosis (RO)
Electrodialysis reversal (EDR)
Nano filtration
Fig. 1.2 Schematic representation of the desalination principle of
nanofiltration (left) and electrodialysis (right).
Membrane distillation
• Others include Solar , and Geothermal desalination
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Thermal desalination
Usually requires large amount of energy.
Good combination with Power plant (Dual purpose)
Thermal Desalination plants can use thermal energy (Low grade
energy) that has been exhausted from the power plant.
Most of the desalination plants in middle eastern are dual
purpose desalination plants to achieve low operating cost.
Membrane desalination
Semi permeable membrane is used for processing water.
Relatively lower energy consumption of Energy compared to
thermal desalination
Driving force is supplied by a pump (Electricity) .
Typical operating pressure of sea water reverse osmosis is
600~1000 psi
Typical operating pressure of brackish water is 30-250psi
Water Production cost in KSA
• Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) data showed an
increase in desalinated water production cost from about 0.59
United State Dollar per cubic meter (US$/m3 ) in 2006 to about 0.8
US$/m3 in 2010 with an average annual rate of 6.3% as shown in
Figure 2. The total production and transmission cost has increased
from about 0.87 US$/m3 in 2006 to about 1.09 US$/m3 in 2010 with
an average annual rate of 4.6%[1].
[1] Tariff Omar K. M. Ouda,Review of Saudi Arabia Municipal Water, -
2013
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Figure 1.3 Cumulative MSF, MED, and RO capacities in the Red Sea in cubic meters perday by site location (dots) and by
country (triangles). The map shows all sites with an installed capacity >1000m3/day and displays sites with a capacity >
100,000 m3/day by name and capacity.[2]
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[2] Sabine Lattemann1, Maria D. Kennedy, “Global Desalination Situation”
Economic side of desalinated water
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World wide desalination water production
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Useful videos
How Seawater Desalination Works
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7bgkFgqJQ
World's 1st Large-Scale Solar Powered Desalination Plant - Al Khafji-
2016
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRuQCMG1Uk
World’s Largest Solar Powered Seawater Desalination Plant-2016
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6iyvrExzJk
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