Innovative Techniques for Desalination of Salty Soil

Introduction

Desalination is the process that separates and removes excess salt and other minerals from water. In this process, water is desalinated to convert salt water to fresh water so that to become suitable for human consumption or irrigation. In the process, two discrete streams are produced, saline solution and fresh water. During the operation, much attention is paid to the treatment and disposal of the brine waste majorly generated during the operation.

Despite the high cost, desalination is one of the parameters that highly limit its applicability and most valuable alternative water resources that are applied to many countries globally. Due to technology advancement and innovations within the field, this process has become the predominant technology in various applications. Reverse osmosis is particularly good for small applications in sunny areas. Wind energy is more attractive as it does not require anything like as much ground. This case is often occurring in islands where there is good wind regime and often very limited flat ground. Large sizes are more attractive with distillation processes due to relative high heat loss from small units.

Consequently, for human beings to be able to access to clean and fresh water, this process have to be embraced while further technological innovations regarding energy consumption and the cost of desalinized water in combination with environmental strategies have to be made. Therefore, there is need to accelerate the development of novel water productions systems from renewable. Future water desalination around the world should be increasingly powered by wind, solar and clean natural resources. Environmental systems should be potentially available at economic costs.

Desalination technologies

Desalination can be achieved through several processes. Industrial desalination technologies use either semi permeable membranes to separate the solvent or some solutes or phase change. These techniques are categorized into the following groups:

I. Hybrid processes

II. Thermal processes or the phase change

III. Single phase processes or membrane

All this processes require a chemical pre­treatment of raw sea water so that to avoid foaming, biological growth, scaling, corrosion, and fouling which also need a chemical post treatment. Solar, wind and other renewable technologies that are used for desalination are rapidly emerging with the promise of environmental viability and economical on a large scale.

Desalination powered by renewable energy

The development of the sustainable and energy efficient schemes is being mainstreamed in all energy related sectors. Desalination coupling with renewable energy source constitutes an appealing and promising alternative. Globally, the total