Water desalination has been practiced around the world, though 60% of the output capacity is located in the Middle East; the scarcity of ground water in this region has driven many nations, including Saudi Arabia, to implement large-scale desalination. In recent years however, many coastal municipalities in the US have evaluated desalination as a means of providing a sustainable water source for an ever-expanding population. While there are many methods of desalinating water, the two technologies that have been considered the most practical for large-scale use are reverse osmosis and distillation.
In reverse osmosis (RO), the feed water is pumped at high pressure through a collection of permeable membranes, separating salts from the water….More