What is desalination?
Desalination is the process of removing dissolved salts from water. The two most common desalination technologies are thermal and membrane technologies. The thermal process involves heating saline water to produce water vapor which is then condensed and collected as fresh water. Membrane processes rely on permeable membranes to separate salts from water. Membrane processes can be pressure-driven (reverse osmosis or RO, the most common method used in desalination), or voltage-driven (electro-dialysis).
Desalination removes salt and other particulates from seawater, brackish water, and recovered wastewater, making it potable. In light of droughts, population increase, and changes in the infrastructure of drinking water purification, desalination methods have emerged as popular, affordable, and necessary. Through distillation and reverse osmosis, water treatment plants can remove most of the salt and impurities from saline water, providing a clean and ingestible supply. Experts agree that we are rapidly running out of freshwater necessary for drinking, washing, and irrigation. Since there is plenty of saltwater in the ocean, researchers have developed processes that can remove the salt and impurities to create freshwater. Some processes can be conducted at coastal plants and others in municipalities. At this point in technological advances, the cost of desalination is still higher than the cost of transporting freshwater from other sources, except in desert regions like West Asia. Dist
Desalination is a process that removes dissolved minerals including salts from saline water and produces potable water. Desalination is a natural and continuous process and a part of the natural water cycle.Seawater evaporates and returns to earth as desalinated rainwater. by Babu Srinivas Madabhushi URS Corporation Why desalinate? Desalination has become increasingly important in the last four decades due to the tendency, in recent years, for the world s swelling population to dwell in areas where supplies of high quality fresh water sources are less than adequate. Moreover, as there are a considerable number of saline sources available, desalination is becoming an attractive possibility. More than three quarters of the earth s surface and more than 95 percent of the world s water is either salty or brackish, and therefore not potable. Desalination increases the range of water resources available for use by communities. According to Ron Linsky of the National Water Research Institute
