Desalination of Sea Water

(Partial fulfillment of environmental studies course)

Bachelor of Engineering
In
Electronics And Communication Engineering

Submitted by:

ANNE RACHELG,
ECE 2A (1210408103).

On
25-03-2010

Submitted to:

Shri. Sharma
Asst Professor
Basic sciences Dept,
GITAM Institute Of Technology
Gitam University

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 GITAM UNIVERSITY
Rushikonda, Visakhapatnam-45

CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the project entitled “Desalination of Seawater “ is a bonafide work

by ANNE RACHEL G of Bachelor of Engineering Department of Electronics and

Communication, GITAM Institute Of Technology, GITAM University, Visakhapatnam

Dr. V. Malleshwara Rao, ME, PhD Shri. Sharma,

Professor and Head Assistant Professor
Department of ECE Department of Basic Sciences
GITAM Institute Of Technology GITAM Institute Of Technology
GITAM University. GITAM University

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I take immense pleasure in thanking my Asst Professor Dr. Sharma for giving me the

opportunity of participating in the project preparation on the topic “Desalination of Sea

Water”.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my friends for their insightful suggestions

and all those who helped me directly or indirectly in bringing out this project report.

ANNE RACHEL .G

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS PAGE NO

1. Introduction 6

2. Thermal Process 8

2.1 Multi-Stage Flash Distillation (MSF)

2.2 Multiple Effect Distillation (MED)
2.3 Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD)

3. Membrane Processes 12

3.1 Electro dialysis

3.2 Electro Dialysis Reverse Process
3.3 Reverse Osmosis (RO)

4. Advantages & Disadvantages 15

5. Conclusions 16

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 ABSTRACT
Desalination of seawater is becoming an important source of drinking water in many
cities and towns, where the demand for water continues to increase, while the supply of
fresh water is limited. Here are few techniques to desalinate seawater that prove to be
very useful. They are Multi Stage Flash Distillation (MSF), Multiple Effect Distillation
(MED) , Vapor Compression Distillation(VC),Reverse Osmosis, Electro Dialysis etc.
Desalination technology has brought fresh water and hence industrial and commercial
development to areas of the world that otherwise might have remained unproductive.
Not only has development been enhanced by this technology but, more importantly, the
health and welfare of many people have been improved by the supply of sanitary fresh
water supplies

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 1. INTRODUCTION

“Water water everywhere nor a drop to drink”

“As you take your daily showers, it’s very easy to forget that fresh
water is a question of life and death”

Water seems to be a superabundant natural resource on the planet earth. However, only
0.3 per cent of the world's total amount of water can be used as clean drinking water.
Man requires huge amounts of drinking water every day and extracts it from nature for
innumerable purposes. Our demand for water grew six fold during the 20th century. One
thing we still have plenty of, however, is ocean as fresh water sources are limited. This
has led a growing number of policymakers and investors to take a fresh look at
desalination, the process of removing salt from sea or brackish water to create drinking
water.

. So, seawater desalination is a real challenge for western civilization

Water Recycle

Desalination is the natural continuous process, which is essential for the water recycle.
Precipitation, such as rain or snowfall on ground, which finally flows either in to the sea
or goes back to the atmosphere through evaporation or percolates in the sub-soil is a
process of natural desalination. Living beings uses this water directly from rain or from
river, lakes or springs. During the travel of the surface water towards sea it dissolves
minerals and other materials and becomes salty. Once it arrives to the oceans natural
evaporation removes part of the water in to the atmosphere as cloud while remaining
water available in the ocean becomes very salty. The evaporated water from the ocean
is given back to the earth in the form of rain or snow, which again travels back to ocean
and the cycle, continues.

Commercially Available Desalting Processes

A desalting device essentially separates saline water into two streams: one with a low
concentration of dissolved salts (the fresh water stream) and the other containing the
remaining dissolved salts (the concentrate or brine stream). The device requires energy
to operate and can use a number of different technologies for the separation. The
various desalting processes are listed below :

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Major Processes

Thermal

• Multi-Stage Flash Distillation (MSF)

• Multiple Effect Distillation (MED)
• Vapor Compression Distillation (VCD)

Membrane

• Reverse Osmosis (RO)

• Electro Dialysis (ED)

Minor Processes

• Freezing
• Membrane Distillation
• Solar Humidification

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 2. THERMAL PROCESS

The distillation process mimics the natural water cycle in that saline water is heated,
producing water vapor that is in turn condensed to form fresh water. In the laboratory or
industrial plant, water is heated to the boiling point to produce the maximum amount of
water vapor.

For this to be done economically in a desalination plant, adjusting the atmospheric

pressure of the water being boiled controls the boiling point. The temperature required
boiling water decreases as one moves from sea level to a higher elevation because of
the reduced atmospheric pressure on the water. The reduction of the boiling point is
important in the desalination process for two major reasons: multiple boiling and scale
control. To boil water it needs two important conditions: the proper temperature relative
to its ambient pressure and enough energy for vaporization. When water is heated to its
boiling point and then the heat is turned off, the water will continue to boil only for a short
time because the water needs additional energy (the heat of vaporization) to permit
boiling. Once the water stops boiling, boiling can be renewed by either adding more heat
or by reducing the ambient pressure above the water. If the ambient pressure is
reduced, then the water would then be at a temperature above its boiling point and will
boil with the extra heat from the higher temperature to supply the heat of vaporization
needed. As the heat of vaporization is supplied, the temperature of the water will fall to
the new boiling point.

To significantly reduce the amount of energy needed for vaporization, the distillation
desalting process usually uses multiple boiling in successive vessels, each operating at
a lower temperature and pressure. This process of reducing the ambient pressure to
promote boiling can continue downward and, if carried to the extreme with the pressure
reduced enough, the point at which water would be boiling and freezing at the same time
would be reached.

Aside from multiple boiling, the other important factor is scale control. Although most
substances dissolve more readily in warmer water, some dissolve more readily in cooler
water. One of the most important is gypsum (CaSC4), which begins to leave solution
when water approaches about 95°C. This material forms a hard scale that coats any
tubes or containers present. Scale creates thermal and mechanical problems and, once
formed, is difficult to remove. One way to avoid the formation of this scale is to keep the
temperature below boiling point of the water. These two concepts have made various
forms of distillation successful in locations around the world.

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2.1 MULTI-STAGE FLASH DISTILLATION (MSF)

In the MSF process, seawater is heated in a vessel called the brine heater. Condensing
steam on a bank of tubes that passes through the vessel, which in turn heats the
seawater, generally does this. This heated seawater then flows into another vessel,
called a stage, where the ambient pressure is such that the water will immediately boil.
The sudden introduction of the heated water into the chamber causes it to boil rapidly,
almost exploding or flashing into steam. Generally, only a small percentage of this water
is converted to steam (water vapor), depending on the pressure maintained in this stage
since boiling will continue only until the water cools (furnishing the heat of vaporization)
to the boiling point.

In this unit, the feed water could pass from one stage to another and be boiled
repeatedly without adding more heat, typically, an MSF plant can contain from 4 to about
40 stages.

The steam generated by flashing is converted to fresh water by being condensed on

tubes of heat exchangers that run through each stage. The incoming feed water going to
the brine heater cools the tubes. This, in turn, warms up the feed water so that the
amount of thermal energy needed in the brine heater to raise the temperature of the
seawater is reduced.

. They are generally built in units of about 4,000 to 30,000 cum/d (1 to 8 mgd). The MSF
plants usually operate at the top feed temperatures (after the brine heater) of 90 -120°C.
One of the factors that affect the thermal efficiency of the plant is the difference in
temperature from the brine heater to the condenser on the cold end of the plant.
Operating a plant at the higher temperature limits of 120°C tends to increase the

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efficiency, but it also increases the potential for detrimental scale formation and
accelerated corrosion of metal surfaces.

2.2 MULTIPLE EFFECT DISTILLATION (MED)

The multi effect distillation (MED) process has been used for industrial distillation for a
long time. One popular use for this process is the evaporation of juice from sugar cane in
the production of sugar or the production of salt with the evaporative process. Some of
the early water distillation plants used the MED process, but the MSF units because of
cost factors and their apparent higher efficiency displaced this process. Most of these
new MED units have been built around the concept of operating on lower temperatures.

MED, like the MSF process, takes place in a series of vessels (effects) and uses the
principal of reducing the ambient pressure in the various effects. This permits the
seawater feed to undergo multiple boiling without supplying additional heat after the first
effect. In an MED plant, the seawater enters the first effect and is raised to the boiling
point after being pre-heated in tubes. The seawater is either sprayed or otherwise
distributed onto the surface of evaporator tubes in a thin film to promote rapid boiling and
evaporation. The tubes are heated by steam from a boiler, or other source, which is
condensed on the opposite side of the tubes. The condensate from the boiler steam is
recycled to the boiler for reuse.

Only a portion of the seawater applied to the tubes in the first effect is evaporated. The
remaining feed water is fed to the second effect, where it is again applied to a tube
bundle. The vapours created in the first effect are in turn heating these tubes. This vapor
is condensed to fresh water product, while giving up heat to evaporate a portion of the
remaining seawater feed in the next effect. This continues for several effects, with 8 or
16 effects being found in a typical large plant.

MED plants are typically built in units of 2,000 to 10,000 cum/d (0.5 to 2.5 mgd). Some of
the more recent plants have been built to operate with a top temperature (in the first
effect) of about 70°C, which reduces the potential for scaling of sea water within the
plant but in turn increases the need for additional heat transfer area in the form of tubes.

2.3 VAPOR COMPRESSION DISTILLATION (VCD)

The vapor compression (VC) distillation process is generally used for small and medium
scale seawater desalting units. The heat for evaporating the water comes from the
compression of vapor rather than the direct exchange of heat from steam produced in a
boiler.

The plants, which use this process, are generally designed to take advantage of the
principle of reducing the boiling point temperature by reducing the pressure. Two primary
methods are used to condense vapor so as to produce enough heat to evaporate
incoming seawater: a mechanical compressor or a steam jet. The mechanical

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compressor is usually electrically driven, allowing the sole use of electrical power to
produce water by distillation.

With the steam jet-type of VC unit, also called a thermo compressor, a vemturi orifice at
the steam jet creates and extracts water vapor from the main vessel, creating a lower
ambient pressure in the main vessel. The steam jet compresses the extracted water
vapour. This mixture is condensed on the tube walls to provide the thermal energy (heat
of condensation) to evaporate the seawater being applied on the other side of the tube
walls in the vessel.

VC Units are usually built in the 20-to 2,000 cum/d (0.005 to 0.5 mgd)

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 3. MEMBRANE PROCESSES
In nature, membranes play an important role in the separation of salts. This includes
both the processes of dialysis and Osmosis that occur in the body. Membranes are used
in two commercially important desalting processes: electro dialysis and RO. Each
process uses the ability of membranes to differentiate and selectively separate salts and
water. However, membranes are used differently in each of these processes.

3.1 ELECTRO DIALYSIS

The dissolved ionic constituents in a saline solution such as sodium (+), chloride (-),
calcium (+ +), and carbonate (- -) are dispersed in water, effectively neutralizing their
individual charges. When electrodes connected to an outside source of direct current like
a battery are placed in a container of saline water, electrical current is carried through
the solution, with the ions tending to migrate to the electrode with the opposite charge.

For these phenomena to desalinate water, membranes that will allow either cations or
anions (but not both) to pass are placed between a pair of electrodes. These
membranes are arranged alternatively with an anion-selective membrane followed by a
cation-selective membrane. A spacer sheet that permits water to flow along the face of
the membrane is placed between each pair of membranes.

The basic electrodialysis consists of several hundred cell pairs bound together with
electrodes on the outside and is referred to as a membrane stack. Feed water passes
simultaneously in parallel paths through all of the cells to provide a continuous flow of
desalted product water and brine to emerge from the stack. Depending on the design of
the system, chemicals may be added to the streams in the stack to reduce the potential
for scaling. An electrodialysis unit is made up of the following basic components:

• Pre-treatment
• Membrane
Stack
• Low-
Pressure
Circulation
pump
• DC power
supply
(rectifier)
• Post-
treatment

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3.2 ELECTRODIALYSIS REVERSAL PROCESS (EDR)

An EDR unit operates on the same general principle as a standard electrodialysis plant
except that both the product and the brine channels are identical in construction. At
intervals of several times an hour, the polarity of the electrodes is reversed, and the
flows are simultaneously switched so that the brine channel becomes the product water
channel, and the product water channel becomes the brine channel.

The result is that the ions are attracted in the opposite direction across the membrane
stack. Immediately following the reversal of polarity and flow, enough of the product
water is dumped until the stack and lines are flushed out, and the desired water quality is
restored. This flush takes about 1 or 2 minutes, and then the unit can resume producing
water. The reversal process is useful in breaking up and flushing out scales, slimes and
other deposits in the cells before they can build up and create a problem. Flushing
allows the unit to operate with fewer pretreatment chemicals and minimizes membrane
fouling.

Electrodialysis has the following characteristics that lend it to various applications:

• Capability for high recovery (more product and less brine)

• Energy usage that is proportional to the salts removed.
• Ability to treat water with a higher level of suspended solids than RO.
• Lack of effect by non-ionic substances such as silica.
• Low chemical usage for pretreatment.

3.3 REVERSE OSMOSIS (RO)

In comparison to distillation and electrodialysis, RO is relatively new.

RO is a membrane separation process in which the water from a pressurized saline
solution is separated from the solutes (the dissolved material) by flowing through a
membrane. No heating or phase change is necessary for this separation. The major
energy required for desalting is for pressurizing the feed water.

In practice, the saline feed water is pumped into a closed vessel where it is pressurized
against the membrane. As a portion of the water passes through the membrane, the
remaining feed water increases in salt content. At the same time, a portion of this feed
water is discharged without passing through the membrane.

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Without this controlled discharge, the pressurized feed water would continue to increase
in salt concentration, creating such problems as precipitation of supersaturated salts and
increased osmotic pressure across the membranes. The amount of the feed water
discharged to waste in this brine stream varies from 20 to 70 percent of the feed flow,
depending on the salt content of the feed water.

An RO system is made up of the following basic components:

• Pretreatment
• High-Pressure Pump
• Membrane Assembly
• Post-treatment

Two developments have helped to reduce the operating costs of RO Plants during the
past decade: the development of membranes that can operate efficiently with lower
pressures and the use of energy recovery devices. The low-pressure membranes are
being widely used to desalt brackish water. The energy recovery devices are connected
to the concentrate stream as it leaves the pressure vessel. The water in the concentrate
stream loses only about 1 to 4 bar (15 to 60 psi) relative to the applied pressure from the
high-pressure pump. These energy recovery devices are mechanical and generally
consist of turbines of pumps of some type that can convert a pressure drop to rotating
energy.

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 4. ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

Advantages

-97% of the Earth’s water is seawater; of the remaining 3% of fresh water, less than 1%
of this is accessible, the rest being trapped in glaciers. We may NEED to look to the
ocean as a source of water. The ocean is a reliable source of water; unlike rainfall, which
sometimes falls and sometimes doesn’t, the ocean is always there. Desalination offers a
secure source of water

- A desalination plant serves as a very flexible means of water output, allowing for
differing quantities of seawater to be processed according to the level of demand.

- Desalination water is safe, free of chemicals and salt. It is not a radical new invention;
there are more than 170,000 plants in operation today. Desalination is environmentally
friendly; it doesn’t require chemicals, and does not spew out toxic waste. A UN
environmental board conducted a study, which revealed that the environmental impact of
desalination is minimal if the process is used correctly.

The desalination process can be matched with power plants, in a method known as co-
generation; power plants only achieve 60% efficiency, with large amounts of thermal
energy being released in the process. By coupling these two energy sectors, the thermal
discharge from power plants can be used to fuel thermodynamic desalination (i.e.
distillation), reducing the energy costs of running a desalination

It guarantees that in a drought there is always clean water, improves fish habitat,
Desalination plants are the size of a warehouse and will be situated in an area close to
other industrial facilities and away from large residential areas, Each day the plant can
supply up to 500 million litres of water regardless of rainfall n plant.

Disadvantages

- Recycling should be considered before desalination is considered.

- Desalination uses about 4kW per kiloliter, but recycling uses only 1kW per kiloliter.

- A desalination plant may only last for around 15 years. There are high economic costs
associated with the setting up and maintenance of desalination plants. 10% cost comes
from fouling, 45% from energy inputs, most of the rest for transportation.

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 5. CONCLUSIONS
Desalination Technology has been extensively developed over the past 40 years to the
point where it is reliably used to produce fresh water from saline sources. This has
effectively made the use of saline waters for water resource development possible. The
costs for desalination can be significant because of its intensive use of energy. However,
in many arid areas of the world, the cost to desalinate saline water is less than other
alternatives that may exist or be considered for the future. The use of desalination
technologies, especially for softening mildly brackish water, is rapidly increasing in
various parts of the world including India.

There is no "best" method of desalination. Generally, distillation and RO are used for
seawater desalting, while RO and electro dialysis are used to desalt brackish water.
However, the selection of a process should be dependent on a careful study of site
conditions and the application at hand. Local circumstances may play a significant role in
determining the most appropriate process for an area. Combination of conventional
effluent treatment and RO (brackish or sea water) has been accepted to be a reasonable
technology for advanced effluent treatment. Thermal Processes are also getting hooked
to these to achieve zero discharge.

The "best" desalination system should be more than economically reasonable in the
study stage. It should work when it is installed and continue to work and deliver suitable
amounts of fresh water at the expected quantity, quality, and cost for the life of a project.

REFRENCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis
http://www.sidem-desalination.com/en/process/MSF/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor-compression_evaporation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrodialysis
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_pros_and_cons_of_desalination

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