Numerous dystopic predictions have been used to stir the global conversation about the increasing impact of environmental degradation – especially in those parts of the world where the infrastructure is simply ill-equipped to handle catastrophes. Whether it is the world continuously heating up, or the increasing number of people (now approaching one billion) who even today have no access to reliable clean water, or communities that are blessed with supplies increasingly facing dwindling clean water sources: at some point, these predictions are going to start becoming reality.
The challenge is to ensure we do not reach that point. Promisingly, recent major developments led by technology and entrepreneurship could light the way.
If current estimates are correct, by 2050, the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will be home to around 3.4 billion people, more than the populations of China and India combined. Aside from environmental pressure, this growing number of people also puts pressure on governments to provide basic utilities such as power and water, which is already a scarce resource in a freshwater-deprived region. Nearly two-thirds of the region’s population live in areas that lack sufficient renewable water sources, and more than 60% live in places with high surface-water stress, compared to a global average of about 35%. This, coupled with unsustainable water use practices, have long been an issue in MEA, and both the public and private sectors have been scrambling for ways to correct this destructive trend.
One rather obvious technology that has risen in prominence over the last several decades is desalination. This generally refers to removing salt from seawater, but could also apply to treatment of other types of water (such as wastewater or brackish water), to make it potable.
This water treatment technique has long been explored and used to address global water supply issues. Some countries in the Middle East rely on it to produce up to 90% of their drinking water needs. The region is host to around 40% of global desalinated water capacity – and a huge part is specifically from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar and Bahrain.
Saudi Arabia, for example, is home to some of the world’s biggest desalination plants. Major providers and operators such as Power are compelled to increase production and improve operational capabilities, especially as the country pursues an ambitious transformation strategy to both meet the needs of its growing population and increase industrialization, putting more pressure on potable water supplies.
Desalination has been used for many purposes: municipal, industrial, power generation, in tourist facilities, and for military services, with the most pronounced benefits being drinking water provision in times of extreme and unexpected weather events like drought.
Because of growing investments and competition in the desalination and material supplier markets, the desalination sector has been fast and flexible when adjusting to new and more efficient technological innovations over time. It has been proven that more precise desalination membranes increase efficiency of desalination and reduce the total desalination costs, and thus the price for desalinated water for the final consumer.
Desalination processes for treating seawater, brackish water, and wastewater are increasingly used to provide communities with essential water resources. The current desalination technologies, such as seawater treatment by thermal and reverse osmosis processes, brackish water treatment by reverse osmosis and electrolysis, and wastewater treatment by reverse osmosis. Feed water quality, pretreatment requirements, operational issues, concentrate disposal, and costs are considered, besides emerging improvements for increasing water recovery. Three alternative desalination technologies – membrane distillation, forward osmosis, and capacitive deionization – are also reviewed, and issues surrounding their industrial implementation discussed.
Desalination using renewable energy is undergoing a rapid development nowadays. The most likely market for coupling renewable energy with desalination is small communities in remote locations where there is no power grid connection or where energy is expensive.
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