What is the science behind desalination?
Desalination at Work By moving the water through the membrane, the cell is attempting to equalize its high internal salt concentration with a low external salt concentration. During each stage, water vapor forms and is collected. This water vapor is fresh water and the left-behind salty concentrate is known as brine.
Can we rely on desalination?
Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Israel rely heavily on desalination as a source for clean water. Israel gets 40 percent of domestic water from desalination. These countries also have hardly any groundwater or fresh water sources so desalination is a case of innovation by necessity.
Which is the natural version of the desalination process?
The natural version of this process is the water cycle. Two fundamental human-made desalination methods are thermal technologies and membrane technologies. Natural Water Desalination (the Water Cycle) — Water is the only substance that can exist as gas, liquid and solid in the naturally occurring temperature ranges on Earth.
How does multiple effect distillation work in desalination?
Multiple Effect Distillation (MED) is a type of thermal desalination. Salt water is heated under pressure and and forced through a chamber. A portion of the salt water evaporates leaving behind a slightly more saline solution than the original salt water.
What are the disadvantages of a desalination plant?
While the purified water goes on to be processed and put into human use, the water that is left over, which has a super saturation of salt, must be disposed of. Most desalination plants pump this brine back into the ocean, which presents another environmental drawback.
How does reverse osmosis ( RO ) work in desalination?
Reverse Osmosis (RO): is a type of membrane desalination. Here salt water is forced under high pressures through a semipermeable membrane that produces relatively pure water on the downstream side and leaves saline-rich water on the source side.