One of the important natural resources on Earth is water.

Water is also one of the

essential for the survival of all the living organisms on this planet. Most of Earth’s
surface (71%) is covered by water and the ocean holds about 97% of water which is
saline and not safe for drinking and other purposes. Only 3% of the water is fresh and
suitable for drinking [1]. The water which we use is surface water and it is basically
available in the rivers, ponds, and lakes. However, the population, the development
activities, industrialization, global warming are increasing; the surface and groundwater
are getting contaminated day by day. The ever-increasing pollution has led to the
introduction of harmful chemicals and hazardous substances in the water system. To live
a healthy life, it is necessary to use only clean water. But the fact is potable water such as
drinking water, water for food production and other basic requirements are not available
everywhere on the earth. Every year a large number of people die because of drinking
contaminated water. There are several countries where there is not enough drinking
water. According to the United Nations, approximately 700 million people in 43
countries currently suffer from water scarcity. The United Nations projects that by 2030
around 40% of the world’s population will face a water deficit with current climate
change trends [2].

Water treatment is the process of improving the quality of water by passing it through
various processes. It includes the removal of suspended solids and other harmful
chemicals so that it is safe for applications or for reintroducing it back to the ecological
system. There is a division of water treatment industry which includes sewage water
treatment or wastewater treatment and desalination [3]. Wastewater treatment is a
common form of treating and removing wastewater from households and industries. On
the other hand, desalination refers to the treatment of saline water which includes
processes like multistage flash distillation (MFD), reverses osmosis (RO), etc [4], [ 5].
The traditional technologies require massive energy consumption and pretreatment and
they also have low water recovery. Therefore, there is still a need to update the existing
technologies or develop innovative methods that can process seawater and wastewater
[6]. Hydrate – based desalination technique is a promising novel method and has attracted
considerable interest [7], [8], [9].

Hydrate-based desalination (HBD) technique is a process that is based on the formation

and dissociation of clathrate hydrates. Clathrate hydrate or gas hydrate is an ice-like
crystalline solid and a kind of inclusion compounds of which the cage-like structure
formed by hydrogen-bonded water molecules can include various kinds of guest
molecules. Guest molecules can be small molecules, such as CO 2, H2, CH4, C2H6 or large
molecules, for example, Cyclopentane (CP), Neohexane, Tetrahydrofuran (THF), etc.
The guest molecules are also referred to as “former”. Water molecules are known as host
molecule. The stabilization result from the guest molecules is postulated to be due to van
der Waals forces, which is the attraction between molecules that is not because of
electrostatic attraction, and there is no bonding between the guest and host molecules.
The guest molecules are free to rotate inside the cages which were built up from the host
molecules. All that is required to form hydrate is the presence of a hydrate former,
enough water present to form a hydrate, and the right combination of pressure and
temperature. In addition, some hydrate formers can allow hydrate to form at atmospheric
pressure, such as CP, THF and Freon carbonate [10], [11], [12]. Generals, the basic
theory of HBD process is that the hydrate crystals eliminate the dissolved ions from the
aqueous phase at hydrate’s formation stage, and freshwater can be obtained after hydrate
dissociation if we separate the hydrates from the remaining solution

Of particular concerns in this HBD process is: energy consumption issues, safe operation
conditions, the difficulties in separating hydrates (solid) from the remaining brines
(liquid) and hydrate former from dissociated water. As mention above, both CP and THF
are two guest molecules that form hydrate at atmospheric pressure and accessible
temperatures. THF’s solubility is high (13.87M), it means that THF is nearly fully
miscible with water. Hence, it is difficult to recovered THF from water after dissociation.
On the other hand, CP forms clathrate hydrates with pure water under atmospheric
pressure at 7oC [13], is immiscible into water [14], easily separated from dissociated
water to recover and recycle [13]. CP is a promising guest candidate for every industrial
process where pressure is a handicap. Considering the limited available data, in this work,
we performed experiments on CPH with the fraction of NaBr in order to investigate the
behavior of the temperature of the mixture during hydrate formation and dissociation in
quick dissociation procedure, the equilibrium temperatures of CPH at each salt
concentration. Thermodynamic modeling approaches were also represented to determine
CPH equilibrium temperatures in presence of salt with accuracy.