The need for brine minimization

Evaporation Ponds –
Land Intensive Solution

Saline Water Basin

Fresh water scarcity and concerns for environmental impact resulting from industrial use place a high degree of importance on recycling and reuse of inland water sources. Since the beginning of the 20th century, industries where traditionally located next to water sources for effluent disposal. These industries are gradually moving to inland locations where disposal is not trivial at all.

Industries that contribute to pollution in inland locations include but are not limited to desalination plants, mining, agricultural applications and power stations.

Following more than three decades of continuing expansion of sea water desalination capacity at coastal sites, considerable interest has now shifted to inland water sources.

Many inland desalination facilities possess ample underground reservoirs of saline water and deserve special focus as they generate large volumes of rejected waste. However, their design presents greater challenges than building a similar facility at a coastal location. Even with the use of conventional brine minimization technologies for high product water recovery, the volume of highly concentrated plant discharge streams can still be very large and costly to dispose.

There are several means of disposal of concentrate that are practiced worldwide. These include: surface water discharge, disposal to front end of sewage treatment plants, deep well disposal, land applications and evaporation ponds.

Not all disposal options are available at a given location due to climate, geology, soil conditions, distance from plant, level of local public concern, and the local regulatory position. Inland desalination plants have few or no cost-effective and environmentally sustainable disposal methods.