Review: Water Desalination Cost

Abstract

The desalination process is one of the most important ways to obtain water suitable for human use. Several techniques are used for the purpose of water desalination. The most important and most common and most widely used techniques are reverse osmosis (RO) membrane processes and multi-stage flash evaporation (MSF) processes.Several models are used for the purpose of estimating the cost of producing desalinated water. A number of factors that affect costs are included, the most important of which are the technology used and energy, in addition to the properties of raw water.The reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technology is considered the lowest operating cost in terms of energy relative to the multi-stage flash evaporation (MSF) plants, as it requires only electrical energy in all stages of operation, while the thermal plants need fuel and energy for the purpose of operation.Reverse osmosis (RO) membrane processes are more sensitive to salinity compared to thermal plants, as the production and efficiency of membrane plants decrease when the salinity of the desalinated raw water changes high.