• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.33-38
• /
• 2010

The evaporative desalination system using solar thermal energy would be the efficient and attractive method to get fresh water from brine due to low carbon dioxide generation. In this research the solar desalination system as a heating source of refrigerant R123 in the evaporator was considered. The circulation of refrigerant in the evaporator can reduce the energy consumption of the system, because of using the latent heat of the refrigerant 123 instead of the sensible heat of present hot water. The system was comprised of the single-stage fresh water production unit on the capacity of 1ton/day with shell and tube type evaporator, heaters instead of solar collector to supply the proper heat to refrigerant, and refrigerant and brine circulation systems. Various operating flowrate and temperature ranges were varied in the experiments to get the optimum design data. The results showed that the optimum flow rate of brine feed rate to evaporator was 1.2Liter/min, and the yield of fresh water was increased as higher temperature of feed brine. It was confirmed that the circulation flowrate of heating source of refrigerant was decrease of one fifth of the present warm water system, and very efficient system for solar desalination.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.48-54
• /
• 1998

Korea becomes one of the countries which suffer from water shortage. It is expected that its water shortage in the early 2000's will be more than 10% of the annual demand. The shortage problem is more serious in the coastal areas where many industry complex locate. To solve the shortage problem, seawater desalination gets more attention as an alternative water supply source since Korea is surrounded by sea on its three sides. For potential application of seawater desalination in Korea, an economic analysis was conducted using cost data for the plants in the Middle Ease areas, The United states and others. The study is to provide a basis for the government to establish a strategy for promoting seawater desalination in Korea. It is discussed that the Reverse Osmosis (RO) process gets cheaper over times than the thermal processes of Multi-stage Flash Distillation (MSF) and Multi Effect Distillation (ME), especially in case where the capacity is less than about 50,000 ton/day. The unit cost of RO seawater is analyzed about US$1.35/ton in 1990 price. Since the Desalination plant can be operated regardless of weather conditions, industries in Korea's coastal areas which suffer from frequent droughts and water shortages are recommended to look into this option with more attention.

• Environmental Engineering Research
• /
• v.20 no.3
• /
• pp.285-289
• /
• 2015

Complicated and expensive seawater desalination technology is a big challenge in boron removal process. Conventional seawater desalination process of coagulation utilized for pre-treatment is difficult to remove boron. Boron can be removed more effectively in Reverse Osmosis (RO) process than any other processes. In this study, a coagulant with the name Mineral Cluster was examined its boron removal ability. Boron removal efficiency of Mineral Cluster depended on pH value and Mineral Cluster dosage. Desalination process combines the pre-treatment process with Mineral cluster diluted at the ratio of 1:2500 and the RO membrane process. The original sea water could be desalinated to drinking water quality, 1 mg/L, without any pH adjustments. Therefore, if the Mineral cluster is added without any other chemicals for adjusting pH, the desalination process would be much safer, efficient and economical.

• Journal of the Korean Professional Engineers Association
• /
• v.42 no.6
• /
• pp.47-52
• /
• 2009

According to increasing demand of water mainly due to the growth of population and increased water consumption, many countries either face or worry about the shortage of fresh water. Proportionately, importance and efforts of each country to develop the potable water has been gradually increasing as well. Among others, desalination of seawater has been developed to one of the solutions mainly from the middle east and other arid regions to produce large quantity of fresh water from seawater. We installed beach seawater collector wells to develop the filtered seawater supply for desalination in a refinery. We came to a conclusion that the beach seawater collector well is one of the recommendable alternatives of seawater pre-treatment for desalination applications with lower operating cost and higher efficiency.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.27 no.5
• /
• pp.555-560
• /
• 2013

A cost analysis method for pretreament processes of a large scale seawater desalination plant was considered using a cost estimation model, WaTER (Water Treatment Estimation Routine). This model is based on cost functions of U.S. EPA to conduct economic analysis of water treatment facilities. A virtual seawater desalination plant which has pretreatment production capacity of $100,000m^3$ per day was chosen as a model plant. Dual media filtration and microfiltration systems were compared as pretreatment process, and the following reverse osmosis process was modeled. As a result, microfiltration showed a price competitiveness in condition of operating with reverse osmosis process by reducing the loads of water treatment and membrane cleaning despite it's high annual cost.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2012.03a
• /
• pp.364-369
• /
• 2012

The development of solar thermal energy used adsorption desalination technology have been examined as a viable option for supplying clean energy. In this study, the modelling of the main devices for solar thermal energy used and adsorption desalination system was introduced. Silica gel type adsorption desalination system is considered to be a promising low-temperature heat utilization system. The design is divided into three parts. First, the evaporator for the vaporization of the tap water is designed, and then the reactor for the adsorption and release of the steam is designed, followed by the condenser for the condensation of the fresh water is designed. In addition, new features based on the energy balance are also included to design absorption desalination system. In this basic research, One-bed(reactor) adsorption desalination plant that employ a low-temperature solar thermal energy was proposed and experimentally studied. The specific water yield is measured experimentally with respect to the time controlling parameters such as heat source temperatures, coolant temperatures, system switching and half-cycle operational times. Desalination is processes that permeate our daily lives, but It requires substantial energy input, powered either from electricity or from thermal input. From the environmental and sustainability perspecives, innovative thermodynamic cycles are needed to produce the above-mentioned useful effects at a lower specific energy input. This article describes the development of adsorption cycles for the production of desalting effects. We want that this adsorption system can be driven by low temperature heat sources at 60 to $80^{\circ}C$, such as renewable, solar thermal energy.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.34 no.1
• /
• pp.53-60
• /
• 2020

Due to global climate change, Korea is experiencing flooding and drought severely. It is hard to manage water resources because intensive precipitation during short periods and drought are commonly occurred in Korea, recently. Severe drought occurred in 2015 and 2017 in the islands, and coastal and inland areas in Korea, and the citizens experienced decreased water supply and emergency water service by using bottled water. Therefore, the Korean government provided additional governmental funds such as the grant of drought disaster. In this study, we tried to calculate the cost of water for drought response based on the cost of tap water for the regional local governments in Korea and the grant of drought disaster by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in Korea, etc. The estimated costs of water for drought responses in coastal and inland areas which have a chance to apply alternative water sources such as brackish or seawater desalination and water reuse in Korea were higher than in other areas in Korea. Additionally, as the novel approach of drought response, the 300 ㎥/day-scale desalination vessel was suggested to provide desalinated water for the islands in Korea. The estimated expenses of water supply for the target island areas (Sinan-gun and Jindo-gun) by the desalination vessel was lower than those by emergency water service by using bottled water.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
• /
• v.27 no.4
• /
• pp.35-41
• /
• 2007

To demonstrate the desalination system, the demo-plant was scheduled to be installed. The system was planned to use solar thermal collector as heat source and PV as electricity source. For the design of the desalination demonstration system, firstly the solar thermal system would be well designed from the result between the supplied heat into the fresh water generator and the fresh water yield. The generator for demonstration system was chosen as the fresh water generator of the single stage and effect with plate-type heat exchanger using low pressure evaporation method. The test facility for the tests to reveal the relationship between the fresh water yield and the supplied heat flow rate was designed and manufactured. The maximum fresh water yield of two fresh water generators applied in this study was designed as 1.5 Ton/day. The parameters relating with the performance of fresh water generator are known as sea water inlet temperature, hot water inlet temperature, and hot water flow rate. Through the experiments, this study firstly showed detail operation characteristics of the generator and designed the solar thermal system for the demonstration system.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.337-342
• /
• 2008

A population growth and industry advances are increasing the demand for water while improving the quality of life. By turning seawater into freshwater it is an alternative for the water shortage problem. The study analyzes the orders and makes suggestions on the outlook of an enterprise that can supply desalination plants both inside and outside the country. It compares the production capacity of enterprises in the desalination industry who deal with the thermal and RO methods. We compare 7 enterprises in the thermal method which includes Doosan Heavy Industries, and the top 10 enterprises in the RO method which includes General Electric Corp. Now that the markets in the Middle East have opened and markets in other regions are gradually growing, demand for water will grow especially in developing countries that are in the process of industrialization. Also, the market share of thermal method desalination has been falling, gradually, because too much energy is spent during the process. On the other hand, the market share of the RO method will rise from 37% in 2005 to 57% in 2015. Recently, the desalination market shows that changing from thermal method to RO method is the trend in the Middle East. Growth and demand in other regions are growing at the same pace as the Middle East. Due to this trend, if the RO system, which is highly effective and uses less energy, were to be continuously developed it would be possible to supply water using sea water and would be a viable alternative water resource.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.33 no.4
• /
• pp.403-408
• /
• 2017

In these days, wastewater reclamation and seawater desalination play essential role in addressing the challenge of worldwide water scarcity. Particularly, reverse osmosis (RO) for seawater desalination process is commonly used due to less energy consumption than conventional thermodynamic systems. However, membrane fouling and electrical energy consumption during operation of RO system for seawater desalination haver continued to be a obstruction to its application. In this study, therefore, wastewater secondary effluent is used for osmotic dilution of seawater. Firstly, fouling behaviour of RO by simulating wastewater effluent in osmotic dilution process was measured and we calculated energy consumption of overall desalination process by theoretical equations and commercial program. Our results reveal that RO membrane fouling can be efficiently controlled by pre-treatment systems such as nano filtration (NF) or forward osmosis (FO) process. Especially FO system for osmotic dilution process is a non-pressurized membrane system and, therefore, the operating energy consumption of overall desalination system was the lowest. Moreover, fouling layer on FO membrane is comparatively weak and reversible enough to be disrupted by physical cleaning. Thus, RO system with low salinity feed water through FO process is possible as a less energy consuming desalination system with efficient membrane fouling control.