Desalination of sea water: trends, experience and development prospects in the Russian Federation

Summary

Fresh water is a limited and unevenly distributed resource. Despite significant fresh water resources, some regions of the Russian Federation experience a shortage of it, which affects the dynamics of the economic development and living standards. This fact requires a revision of the classical approach to the environmental management, in particular, to the extraction of fresh water from sea and brackish waters. The most common desalination technologies are thermal (distillation) and pressure membrane (reverse osmosis and nanofiltration) processes. Over the past quarter century, reverse osmosis has become the predominant water desalination technology, accounting for more than 70% of all production capacity in the world. Nevertheless, reverse osmosis has a number of significant limitations, the consideration of which while designing desalination plants is a prerequisite for the subsequent efficient and reliable operation of the facilities. Strict requirements for the quality of source water supplied to reverse osmosis membranes necessitate the use of complex and often multi-stage seawater pretreatment systems. The choice of technical solutions for pre-treatment and «architecture» of reverse osmosis plants is the subject of a comprehensive technical and economic analysis with account of local aspects, including the region of construction, its natural and climatic conditions and available infrastructure. The shortage of water resources and the climatic and oceanological conditions of the coastal regions of the Russian Federation atypical for the global desalination industry make the solution to this optimization problem relevant and appropriate.

Key words

reverse osmosis , desalination , membranes , desalination , sea water , fresh water , distillation , pretreatment