lundi 30 mars 2015

The Diverse Forms Of Seawater Technologies

By Lelia Hall


For the survival of humans, animals industries and agricultural sector, fresh water has always been a vital commodity. With the increase in each of the above factors makes an increase in its supply in the future important. As it is becoming a scarce commodity. There are various seawater technologies that have come up which aided significantly in achieving the objective.

Marine water comprises a whole 97% of the aqua storage on earth. This is followed by the glaciers which make up only 2% of the summation. Surprisingly only 0.5% is the one available for humanity use. This is sourced from inland aqua bodies. Sea aqua being not suitable for domestic and industrial human use has made desalination quite a vital means of providing another source of fresh water.

The desalination process involves separation of the resource into two streams. A fresh stream containing a low concentration of dissolved salts and a concentrated brime stream. The above process requires some form of energy to desalinate and several different technologies are utilized. Over the years a variety of innovations have been developed on the basis of thermal distillation, membrane separation, freezing, electro dialysis, etc. On commercial basis the two most important technologies are based on the MSF and RO technologies although it is viewed that the two processes together with MED (multiple effect distillation) will be dominant and competitive in the future.

One of the technology is the multiple stage flash distillation. It is banked on the flash evaporation principle. This is where evaporation takes place not by causing an increase in the temperature, but instead lowering the pressure. It turns out to be a very economical method since the heating is regenerative. The aqua passes over its heat over to its counterpart as it flashes through each stage.

Multiple effect distillation is the form of distillation process. And is also thermodynamically efficient. The process takes place in a series of evaporators called effects and uses the principle of reducing the ambient pressure in the various effects. The MED plant steam economy is proportional to the number of effects. MED plants can have 3 types of tubes, that is, horizontal, vertical or submerged. Most recent application have been in the Middle East. Although their number is still relatively small compared to MSF plants, their numbers have been increasing.

Another form of distillation is the vapor compression. Where compression of vapor is the means of heating the incoming aqua. This is made possible by application of two methods. Use of mechanical compressor hand in hand with steam jet. It is built in the principle that boiling point is reduced with reduction of pressure. In small scale units of desalination this method is highly used.

There is also the method of Reverse Osmosis (RO). Where external pressure, more than the osmotic pressure of the marine water, is applied thereby overcoming the osmotic pressure. Therefore leaving behind dissolved salts with the increase in their concentration. In the recent past various developments have emerged to assist in reducing operating cost of the RO plants.

There are many other innovations being used in desalination. Others include freezing, solar evaporation and potabilization. But they tend not to be commonly used as compared to the rest.




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