Desalination: Unlocking Fresh Water
Desalination: Unlocking Fresh Water
Water is the most valuable resource on Earth for sustaining life. Humans require fresh water for many things including drinking and irrigation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey website, about 97% of all water on the planet is saline water (1). This means that the majority of water has too many total dissolved solids (TDS) to be usable. As the human population grows, demands for fresh water supplies increase. One technology being developed to meet this growing demand is desalination.
Desalination allows us to utilize seawater and brackish groundwater that was previously considered unsafe for use. Water is classified as fresh if it contains less than 1,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of TDS (2). The goal of desalination is to bring water into this safe range. There are many methods of desalination but the most common method is reverse osmosis (RO). Reverse osmosis is popular due to the relatively low cost compared to other methods (3).
RO desalination incorporates the use of membrane technology to remove TDS from seawater or brackish ground water to create useable fresh water. There are four major components to the RO desalination process (4). First, the water is pretreated to remove suspended solids and control scaling on the membrane. Secondly, a pump raises pressure in order to …show more content…
As research in this area increases, the cost is being driven down. Alternative energy sources will reduce the need for use of fossil fuels, and will lower the cost and reduce waste as a result. Some desalination plants use energy reclamation devices such as turbines in order to further lower the cost of production. There is also the possibility that valuable minerals can be processed from the resulting waste water and sold for consumer and industrial
Water is the most valuable resource on Earth for sustaining life. Humans require fresh water for many things including drinking and irrigation. According to the U.S. Geological Survey website, about 97% of all water on the planet is saline water (1). This means that the majority of water has too many total dissolved solids (TDS) to be usable. As the human population grows, demands for fresh water supplies increase. One technology being developed to meet this growing demand is desalination.
Desalination allows us to utilize seawater and brackish groundwater that was previously considered unsafe for use. Water is classified as fresh if it contains less than 1,000 milligrams per liter (mg/L) of TDS (2). The goal of desalination is to bring water into this safe range. There are many methods of desalination but the most common method is reverse osmosis (RO). Reverse osmosis is popular due to the relatively low cost compared to other methods (3).
RO desalination incorporates the use of membrane technology to remove TDS from seawater or brackish ground water to create useable fresh water. There are four major components to the RO desalination process (4). First, the water is pretreated to remove suspended solids and control scaling on the membrane. Secondly, a pump raises pressure in order to …show more content…
As research in this area increases, the cost is being driven down. Alternative energy sources will reduce the need for use of fossil fuels, and will lower the cost and reduce waste as a result. Some desalination plants use energy reclamation devices such as turbines in order to further lower the cost of production. There is also the possibility that valuable minerals can be processed from the resulting waste water and sold for consumer and industrial