What Is Sea Water Desalination?

What Is Sea Water Desalination?

The Desalination industry is relatively small; however it is a growing market. While water is plentiful, over 97% is too salty for human consumption. Desalination companies utilize the unlimited supply of seawater and through Reverse Osmosis or distillation, create potable water by removing the salts.

Desalination systems consist of seawater intake (open or beach well), pre-treatment filters (screen and multimedia filters), Reverse Osmosis (RO) membranes and chemical dosing systems. The process of Reverse Osmosis requires significant feed pressure depending on the ocean (specific TDS) and temperature. The feed pressure ranges from 700-900 PSI. Given the high operating pressure and associated energy consumption/cost, energy recovery devices (ERD) are frequently used to lower the energy cost for the RO system.