Seawater Use and Desalination Technology

Desalination processes for treating seawater, brackish water, and wastewater are increasingly used to provide communities with essential water resources. This chapter provides an overview of current desalination technologies, such as seawater treatment by thermal and reverse osmosis processes, brackish water treatment by reverse osmosis and electrodialysis, and wastewater treatment by reverse osmosis. Feed water quality, pretreatment requirements, operational issues, concentrate disposal, and costs are considered, besides emerging improvements for increasing water recovery. Three alternative desalination technologies – membrane distillation, forward osmosis, and capacitive deionization – are also reviewed, and issues surrounding their industrial implementation discussed.

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