• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
• /
• v.27 no.1
• /
• pp.17-32
• /
• 2018

The need for seawater desalination is increasing in terms of securing various water resources, but few studies are available as for the environmental impact of hypersaline concentrated water (brine) discharged from desalination plants. Domestic studies are concentrated mainly on toxicity evaluation that phytoplankton, zooplankton larvae and green algae (Ulva pertusa) are negatively affected by concentrated water. The mortality of Paralichthys olivaceus showed a linear relationship with increasing salinity, and Oryzias latipes died 100% at concentrations above 60 psu. Foreign studies included monitoring cases as well as toxicity evaluations. The number of species decreased around the area where the concentrated water discharged. The hypersaline concentrated water affects the pelagic and benthic organisms. However, the fishes escaped when exposed to salinity, and the pelagic and benthic organisms resistant to salinity survived the hypersaline environment. The salinity limit and distance from the outlet was presented as the regulatory standard for bine discharge. There were differences in regulatory standards among country and seawater desalination plants, and these regulatory standards have been strengthened recently. In particular, California Water Boards were revised to ensure that the maximum daily salinity concentration does not exceed 2 psu above the ambient salinity level within 100 m of the outlet.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.31 no.6
• /
• pp.599-609
• /
• 2017

Desalination plants have been recently constructed in many parts of the world due to water scarcity caused by population growth, industrialization and climate change. Most seawater desalination plants are designed with a submarine pipeline for intake and discharge. Submarine pipelines are installed directly on the bottom of the water body if the bottom is sandy and flat. Intake is located on a low-energy shoreline with minimal exposure to beach erosion, heavy storms, typhoons, tsunamis, or strong underwater currents. Typically, HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) pipes are used in such a configuration. Submarine pipelines cause many problems when they are not properly designed; HDPE pipelines can be floated or exposed to strong currents and wind or tidal action. This study examines the optimal design method for the trench depth of pipeline, analysis of on-bottom stability and dilution of the concentrate based on the desalination plant conducted at the Pacific coast of Peru, Chilca. As a result of this study, the submarine pipeline should be trenched at least below 1.8 m. The same direction of pipeline with the main wind is a key factor to achieve economic stability. The concentrate should be discharged as much as high position to yield high dilution rate.

• Membrane Journal
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.185-196
• /
• 2010

Korea is presently the leading country in global desalination industry and has been investing a large amount of money and human resources in development of new core technologies to increase its' share of global market. In this paper, we reviewed world-wide trends of the advanced water industry and outlined various seawater desalination technologies developed so far. We also made some analysis on the directions and results of the government-lead R&D sponsorship in the field of seawater-freshening technology. Present studies showed that we need an institutional strategy to help domestic companies guarantee the credibility of the technologies developed by themselves based upon their experience of plant operation. Futhermore, strategic R&D programs to develope original technologies and localization of key components for desalination plants should be preceded in the near future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2016.10a
• /
• pp.663-664
• /
• 2016

Temperature difference power generation using sea water is a method repeatedly closed liquefaction and gasification by using the ammonia (refrigerant) of the deep sea water and surface water with a temperature difference between turning the turbine. The larger the temperature difference between the nature of the temperature characteristic energy generation development, the better. This is the story that the surface waters of the deep-water temperature difference is large. But the winter is not large temperature difference between surface water and deep water has lowered energy efficiency. And desalination technologies accounted for 97% of the earth, but we can not eat the technology to convert sea water into fresh water, fresh water produced by the desalination technology that is available for various industries such as irrigation, drinking water in the vessel.In this paper, LNG transport vessels, based on the LNG transport ship to the temperature difference power generation using cold energy of thermal energy and LNG marine diesel engines, which use the existing order to improve the temperature of the surface waters of the season that is the current problem we propose that a complex development of desalination and desalination of seawater freezing research into hybrid research and utilizing the cold energy of the engine.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.55 no.6
• /
• pp.762-766
• /
• 2017

Energy recovery device (ERD) is used to save energy consumption in seawater reverse osmosis processes. However, small-scale ERDs (<$100m^3/d$) are hardly observed in seawater desalination market. In South Korea, most of seawater desalination plants for drinking water production are small-scaled and have been operated in island areas or on ships. Thus, the effect of ERDs for these small-scale SWRO processes should not be neglected. In this work, the small-scale SWRO processes are designed and analyzed in terms of energy consumption with/without ERD. The realistic efficiencies of high pressure pumps are considered for the energy analyses. The unit cost of electricity depending on the application place (e.g., inland and island areas, on ships) is investigated to calculate the energy cost for unit water production in various SWRO applications classified by plant capacity, application place, and the installation of ERD. As a result, the energy cost can be saved up to $1,640.4KRW/m^3$ when ERD is applied, and the saving effect increases at smaller plants on ships. In conclusion, the development of small-scale ERDs are necessary because small-scale SWRO processes are dominant in Korean seawater desalination market, and the electricity saving effect becomes higher at smaller-scaled system.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.38 no.9
• /
• pp.1094-1100
• /
• 2014

TEvaporator is key component in food, seawater distillation and waste water treatment system, which is basically to concentrate the raw liquid by evaporating the pure water under vacuum condition. The liquid concentration is performed through the membrane, electro-dialysis and evaporation. In this study, only the evaporating type was treated for evaluating the economic analysis with the various operating conditions. The results of this study showed that the performance of the OT-MSF desalination system is increased with decreasing the temperature difference between the neighboring evaporators, which means that the number of evaporators is increased, under the determined design conditions.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
• /
• v.3 no.4
• /
• pp.253-266
• /
• 2012

In this work, the effect of hybrid salts precipitation-nanofiltration (SP-NF) process on the scale deposits in thermal and membrane desalination processes has been studied. The analysis was carried out to study the scale formation from the Arabian Gulf seawater in MSF and RO reference processes by changing the percentage of pretreatment from 0 to 100%. Four different SP-NF configurations were suggested. A targeted Top Brine Temperature (TBT) of $130^{\circ}C$ may be achieved if 30% portion is pretreated by SP and/or NF processes. As a rule of thumb, each 1% pretreatment portion increases the reference TBT of $115^{\circ}C$ by $0.6^{\circ}C$. For both MSF and RO, parallel pretreatment of certain percentage of the feed by SP and the rest by NF, showed the lowest scale values. The case showed the best values for sulfate scale prevention and the highest values of increasing the monovalent ions relative to the divalent scale forming ions. Sulfate scale is significant in MSF process while carbonate scale is significant in RO. Salt precipitation was suggested because it is less costly than nanofiltration, but nanofiltration was used here because it is efficient in sulfate ions removal.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.281-289
• /
• 2019

Desalination plants are generally studied with higher operating costs compared to water supply facilities. This study was conducted to reduce the cost of water production and to preserve existing water resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to utilize the control valves to increase maximum efficiency, thereby reducing the power of the pumps and operating costs. Specific energy consumption was shown to reduce the process operating power by up to 1.7 times from 6.17 to $3.55kWh/m^3$ based on seawater reverse osmosis 60 bar. In addition, the water intake process was divided into pre, inter, and post-according to the use method of blasting, and the water treatment process was divided into pre, inter, and post blending. In order to reduce power consumption, the blending process was combined to operate the facility, which resulted in the reduction of power consumption in the order post > pre-inter> inter blending.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.60 no.3
• /
• pp.371-376
• /
• 2022

Liquefied natural gas undergoes a process of vaporization to be supplied as city gas, which generates about 800 kJ/kg of cold energy. Currently, all of this cold energy is being dumped into the sea, resulting in a very serious energy waste from the point of view of energy recycling. In this study, a seawater desalination process that can utilize the wasted cold energy was proposed, and this process was optimized to analyze the specific power consumption and economic feasibility. As a result, the specific energy consumption of the proposed process was calculated as -5.2kWh/m³, and the production cost of the pure water was 0.148 USD/m³, confirming that it is superior to any other process developed so far.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Systems Engineering
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.73-87
• /
• 2016

Combining power generation and water production by desalination is economically advantageous. Most desalination projects use fossil fuels as an energy source, and thus contribute to increased levels of greenhouse gases. Environmental concerns have spurred researchers to find new sources of energy for desalination plants. The coupling of nuclear power production with desalination is one of the best options to achieve growth with lower environmental impact. In this paper, we will per-form a sensitivity study of coupling nuclear power to various combinations of desalination technology: {1} thermal (MSF [Multi-Stage Flashing], MED [Multi-Effect Distillation], and MED-TVC [Multi-Effect Distillation with Thermal Vapour Compression]); {2} membrane RO [Reverse Osmosis]; and {3} hybrid (MSF-RO [Multi-Stage Flashing & Reverse Osmosis] and MED-RO [Multi-Effect Distillation & Reverse Osmosis]). The Korean designed reactor plant, the APR1400 will be modeled as the energy production facility. The economical evaluation will then be executed using the computer program DEEP (Desalination Economic Evaluation Program) as developed by the IAEA. The program has capabilities to model several types of nuclear and fossil power plants, nuclear and fossil heat sources, and thermal distillation and membrane desalination technologies. The output of DEEP includes levelized water and power costs, breakdowns of cost components, energy consumption, and net saleable power for any selected option. In this study, we will examine the APR1400 coupled with a desalination power plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a prototypical example. The KSA currently has approximately 20% of the installed worldwide capacity for seawater desalination. Utilities such as power and water are constructed and run by the government. Per state practice, economic evaluation for these utilities do not consider or apply interest or carrying cost. Therefore, in this paper the evaluation results will be based on two scenarios. The first one assumes the water utility is under direct government control and in this case the interest and discount rate will be set to zero. The second scenario will assume that the water utility is controlled by a private enterprise and in this case we will consider different values of interest and discount rates (4%, 8%, & 12%).