Energy efficient seawater desalination: Strategies and opportunities

Abstract

With the change in climate patterns, rapid industrialization, and population growth, the increasing water and energy demand became a major concern in the past decades. Desalination has been touted as the answer to the global water crisis, due to its capability in producing high-quality fresh water from saline water. The continual research and innovations in the desalination field have resulted in the commercialization of large-scale desalination in many water scarce regions. In the energetic context, all desalination processes are energy intensive. With the necessity to make desalination a more affordable and sustainable process, the energy efficiency of desalination is becoming an important topic. Herein, it is aimed to provide insights into the recent efforts and strategies established to tackle the energy-related issues of both, thermal-based and membrane-based desalination processes. Depending on the principle of various commercial and emerging desalination processes, the directions of energy efficiency improvements, which include operating condition optimization, high-performance material development, and renewable energy exploitation are discussed. The ideas and strategies reviewed herein, whether in their implementation or theoretical stage, are expected to provide insights into the possible improvement for application in commercial desalination plants.