Water desalination removes salt and minerals from water for drinking or irrigation, producing brine that can be processed into table salt. It is expensive but necessary where natural water is limited. Methods include multistage flash distillation and reverse osmosis. Environmental concerns include harm to marine life and disposal of the brine byproduct.
Water desalination is the process of removing salt and other minerals from water to make water for drinking or irrigation. The byproduct of this process is brine, which can be processed into table salt. Water desalination is used to produce fresh water in communities where natural drinking water is limited. It is also used to create fresh water for use in ships and submarines.
Because of the specialized equipment involved, water desalination tends to be more expensive than using natural water sources, such as lakes, springs, and rivers. For this reason water desalination is only economically feasible when it would be difficult or impossible to obtain fresh water from natural sources. One way to reduce the cost of water desalination is to couple the desalination plant with an energy plant and then use the heat byproduct from the power plant to aid in water desalination.
Many countries use desalinated water. Some examples are the United States, Australia, Israel and Saudi Arabia. While water desalination tends to be expensive compared to using natural groundwater, some studies suggest it is generally less expensive than using large-scale water recycling programs.
There are a couple of methods by which water can be desalinated. One of the most common desalination methods is multistage flash distillation (MSF). In MSF, water is transformed into steam using a series of heat exchangers. Heat exchangers allow for efficient transfer of heat from one medium to another. When water condenses, salt and other minerals are left behind.
Another method of water desalination uses reverse osmosis. In this process, a membrane filter is used to remove minerals from the water. The water is pushed under high pressure through a membrane. Water is able to move across the membrane, but salt and other minerals cannot. This process is also used to purify fresh water.
Desalination of water raises some environmental concerns. It is difficult to remove water from the sea without harming marine life. Beach wells can solve this problem; however, they limit the amount of water that can be collected and require more energy.
The other major environmental concern is what to do with the byproduct. The brine byproduct has a much higher salt concentration than natural seawater. This can be harmful to fish if they are dumped in the ocean. This problem can be solved by mixing the brine with the watery by-product of other plants or by dumping it in places where the current is more likely to scatter the salt.
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