Why reverse osmosis for sea water desalination ?
A. Reverse osmosis is the most energy-efficient process in comparison with the other two desalination processes, namely, distillation and freeze-thawing. It takes certain minimum amount of mechanical energy, also known as “free energy” to remove one gallon of water from saline solution. For example, the power requirement of a Blue Spring reverse osmosis desalination unit with a capacity to produce 1 gallon per minute of fresh water from sea water is 0.5 -1.4 horse power, depending on the model chosen. By comparison, for distillation process, this power requirement is 30- 186 horse power! If you have a lot of energy to waste, use distillation. Otherwise Blue Spring reverse osmosis desalinators are the best bet for you. They are designed for minimum use of energy. Only in exceptional cases in which heat energy may be available free from another source, will distillation process prove to be economical. One such example is low-pressure exhaust steam from steam turbines used in power genera
