Technical and economic aspects of water desalination worldwide

Abstract

As a consequence to global warming and climate change all around the world and irregular consumption of underground water resources, the societies are being faced to a serious dangers named water scarcity. Population growth, need to food security, climate changes and agricultural needs have forced the societies to search for appropriate alternatives for fresh water resources. Unconventional water resources are known as one of the most important alternatives for fresh water on the earth. One of the most sources of unconventional waters is saline or brackish water. Considering the great amount of saline water on the earth, water desalination can be a fruitful method to overcome the crisis of water scarcity. Water desalination technologies will be categorized into two main groups of thermal and membrane technologies. In this paper, at first the most important and most applicable desalination technologies around the world are studied, then the influences of desalination technologies regarding energy and economy have been evaluated. At the end, the examples of desalination units in different parts of the world have been studied.

Keywords

• desalination
• seawater
• membrane
• energy