Desalination | Desalination Process

How does the desalination process is carried out can be either by evaporation which
is very expensive, or reverse osmosis which is more cost effective. In a modern world,
it might be difficult to believe that there are still places where water is unsafe to
drink. Yet, more places are becoming health hazards due to a number of factors, and are
implementing alternative methods to conserve, and replace, drinkable water.

Humans cannot drink sea water straight from the oceans as a means of their daily water
needs. The salt content is entirely too high for the human body to be able to filter out
the salts and other compounds. Even rural areas that are not situated on a coastal region
could be sitting on underground wells that are full of impurities and salts.

The older reverse osmosis plants were not reliable due to the membranes which were used
to trap harmful content. However, more modern methods have incorporated new technologies
which make this process the most affordable method of reclaiming drinkable water. These
new filters last up to ten years, which allows the company enough profit margin to make
the process sustainable.

Some locations around the world are using desalination to claim drinking water from natural
salt water bodies, and provide fresh drinking water to the surrounding population. These
water reclamation plants produce by products which are sold to other industries for use
as common table salt and various types of cleaning compounds.

The first desalination plant was built in Spain, over 40 years ago, in an effort to supply
potable (drinking) water to the Canary Islands. Research continues with their effort to
combine alternative power sources with the desalination process in hopes of a more affordable
means of extracting salt from sea water.

There are over 15,000 desalination plants in the world which are diligently trying to provide
clean fresh water to billions of people, yet the cost still remains at $3-4 per thousand
gallons. There is hope that new technologies will produce filtration materials which can
greatly reduce this expense. Advances of nanotechnology are starting to make progress in
filling this need, but there is a long way to go in making sea water a dependable source
for remote regions of the world.

Ion Exchange Membranes are used in the process of desalination to electrically charge unwanted
particles, which are then extracted leaving only the remaining fresh water. However, this
process takes a lot of electricity when applied to sea water conversions. When considering
that in many remote areas of the globe, even underground water is contaminated by irrigation
which has salinated the soil.

In such areas as Africa, and the Middle East, there is the additional problem of desert land
where water may not exist, even underground. In those remote areas the reclaimed sea water
would require an infrastructure to deliver the fresh water. In financially disadvantaged
countries, the costs of such operations is completely cost prohibitive.

Household water treatment units are now available which are much more affordable to operate.
A large number of homes inside city limits are still getting their drinking water from
underground wells, especially in less populated areas where the city infrastructure is
insufficient to provide those homes with drinking water.

Solar power is being used to power home water treatment units which provides a very affordable
means of purifying the local source of potable water. These units are not that expensive to
buy, and being powered by the sun makes them have no effect on the electric bill of the
homeowner. Solar power could be the answer to making sea water facilities operate at a
much more affordable cost than currently being produced.

Solar Thermal Desalination Systems for home use are available which do not take up very
much space, when considering the improvement in pure drinking water. Depending on the needs
of the occupants, these systems can start with as few as 10 solar panels which deliver
enough electrical power to run the entire system.

For those areas of the world where government operated facilities are not yet equipped
with solar, it could be a viable alternative for home users to convert to the use of
solar in extracting potable water from otherwise contaminated water sources. These
units can easily supply enough fresh water for the average household use.

How Does The Desalination Process Is Carried Out is still a matter of technology to
solve for better and more cost affordable filtration materials, but the use of home
based water purification systems has already conquered the small application needs
of a typical dwelling.