TY - JOUR
T1 - An advantage for desalination of coastal saline groundwater over seawater in view of boron removal requirements
AU - Stein, Shaked
AU - Sivan, Orit
AU - Yechieli, Yoseph
AU - Kasher, Roni
AU - Nir, Oded
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank Eran Gal, Tali Coves, and Itzik Lutvak from the Ben Gurion University of the Negev for their help in the desalination experiments and boron analysis. We would like to thank Alon Moshe from the Geological Survey of Israel for his help in water sampling and measurements in the field. This project received funding from the Israel Science Foundation (#2325/20).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2021/9/3
Y1 - 2021/9/3
N2 - Saline groundwater (SGW) from coastal aquifers is an alternative source for seawater in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination and holds several advantages over seawater. During seawater intrusion into the coastal aquifer, boron is adsorbed to the sediment, and its concentration is reduced with respect to seawater. This study aims to quantify the advantages of using SGW for RO desalination that result from lower boron concentration, stable temperature, and lower salinity as compared to seawater desalination. Firstly, SGW from the coastal aquifer in Israel was sampled and analyzed chemically, and desalination experiments were conducted to calibrate and validate an RO membrane transport simulation code. Secondly, simulations of a large-scale desalination plant (60 million m3 y−1) that uses seawater and SGW as feed were performed. Results show that due to the lower boron concentration in SGW, lower capacity for the 2nd (boron removal) pass of desalination is needed, which saves 21% of the 2nd pass volume compared with seawater. An environmental techno-economic analysis shows that using SGW for desalination (compared with seawater) reduces the operational energy and costs by 17% (∼$4 million per year). Overall, SGW desalination is found to be energy and cost-efficient compared with seawater desalination, and thus, reduces the process environmental load.
AB - Saline groundwater (SGW) from coastal aquifers is an alternative source for seawater in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination and holds several advantages over seawater. During seawater intrusion into the coastal aquifer, boron is adsorbed to the sediment, and its concentration is reduced with respect to seawater. This study aims to quantify the advantages of using SGW for RO desalination that result from lower boron concentration, stable temperature, and lower salinity as compared to seawater desalination. Firstly, SGW from the coastal aquifer in Israel was sampled and analyzed chemically, and desalination experiments were conducted to calibrate and validate an RO membrane transport simulation code. Secondly, simulations of a large-scale desalination plant (60 million m3 y−1) that uses seawater and SGW as feed were performed. Results show that due to the lower boron concentration in SGW, lower capacity for the 2nd (boron removal) pass of desalination is needed, which saves 21% of the 2nd pass volume compared with seawater. An environmental techno-economic analysis shows that using SGW for desalination (compared with seawater) reduces the operational energy and costs by 17% (∼$4 million per year). Overall, SGW desalination is found to be energy and cost-efficient compared with seawater desalination, and thus, reduces the process environmental load.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118556402&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1039/d1ew00427a
DO - 10.1039/d1ew00427a
M3 - Article
SN - 2053-1400
VL - 7
SP - 2241
EP - 2254
JO - Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology
JF - Environmental Science: Water Research and Technology
IS - 12
ER -
