How does a desalination plant turn seawater into drinking water?

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1. 1

   Desalination (Wikipedia)

   WikipediaPublished Oct 10, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “Desalination is the artificial process by which salt water (generally sea water) is converted to fresh water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. It is possible to desalinate saltwater, especially sea water, to produce water for human consumption or irrigation, producing brine as a by-product. Interest in desalination mostly focuses on cost-effective provision of fresh water for human use. Along with recycled wastewater, it is one of the few water resources independent of rainfall. As stress on the need for freshwater intensifies globally, desalination has become a key part of strategies for global water security. According to a 2019 review in Science of the Total Environment, around 95 million cubic meters per day of desalinated water is produced worldwide, and the demand for desalinated water is expected to grow significantly to help close the global water supply gap. Due to its energy consumption, desalinating sea water is generally more costly than fresh water from surface water or groundwater, water recycling and water conservation.”

2. 2

   Membrane Distillation: Module Design and Application Performance.

   Membranes (Nthunya & Mamba)Published Jul 16, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “Membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a thermal process used in desalination, wastewater treatment, and resource recovery. It has demonstrated high salt rejection, but process scale-up is affected by unstable process performance caused by membrane fouling and scaling, limitations of heat and mass transfer, and module design challenges. The research outputs presented here assess membrane module design and configurations, hydrodynamic optimization, understanding of membrane fouling, and its control in long-term and intermittent process operation. Furthermore, the integration of crystallization, resource recovery from wastewater, and techno-economic feasibility are also elucidated. The collective findings showed that optimization of the modules, process operating conditions, and the integration of crystallization could improve MD performance stability and resource recovery. Beyond crystallization, MD has demonstrated the ability to recover nutrients from anaerobic digestate, suggesting process expansion directions. These findings provide insights into the key requirements for MD implementation at an industrial scale.”

3. 3

   Thermodynamic Evaluation of a Triple-Pass Reverse Osmosis Seawater Desalination Plant: Energy and Exergy Perspectives.

   Membranes (Almutairi et al.)Published Jul 1, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “The impacts of feed water temperature, high-pressure pump pressure, and water recovery ratio (RC) on exergetic efficiency, specific energy consumption, and permeate flow rate were systematically assessed. Increasing the feed water temperature from 15 °C to 33 °C enhanced exergetic efficiency from 27.8% to 29.9% and reduced total exergy destruction from 1622 to 1582 kW, supporting the integration of hybrid RO-thermal desalination systems. The first-pass recovery ratio emerged as the most influential operational parameter overall, with exergetic efficiency rising from 25.1% to 33.7% as RC1 increased from 0.35 to 0.60. Analysis of the overall recovery ratio identified RC = 0.39 as a practical operating target that balances specific energy consumption of 4.05 kWh/m3 and exergy destruction of 1700 kW, offering the most favourable compromise between energy efficiency and thermodynamic performance. The results presented here provide practical guidance and recommendations for the optimization of the performance of large-scale multi-pass reverse osmosis seawater desalination plants.”

4. 4

   Operational Stability and Treatment Efficiency of a Reverse Osmosis Plant Treating Highly Mineralized Water: Results of a Four-Year Follow-Up Study.

   Membranes (Sellami et al.)Published Aug 31, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “An Operational Stability Index was also introduced to quantify process consistency over time. The results demonstrate stable desalination performance, with salt rejection exceeding 90%. Operational monitoring indicated effective pretreatment conditions, low SDI values, and controlled membrane fouling under long-term operation. Differential pressure evolution and cleaning-in-place performance further confirmed the effectiveness of the implemented fouling mitigation strategy. Membrane autopsy investigations revealed the coexistence of biological fouling, silica scaling, and localized oxidative degradation, highlighting the importance of integrated pretreatment and operational control. The findings demonstrate the value of long-term industrial monitoring for understanding membrane performance, fouling behavior, and operational stability in full-scale RO systems. This approach supports data-driven operational optimization and may contribute to the future development of predictive monitoring and intelligent desalination-management frameworks as a Digital Twin.”

5. 5

   Thermodynamic insights on desalination processes: exergy analysis, minimum separation work, and advances in capacitive deionization with battery electrodes.

   RSC advances (Taktour et al.)Published Apr 16, 2026Checked Oct 11, 2026

   “It employs various technologies tailored to varying levels of salinity. While energy efficiency is a primary focus in desalination, its intuitive interpretation is challenging due to process variations. This viewpoint offers a thermodynamics-based understanding of energy consumption by examining it in terms of irreversible dissipation and minimal separation energy. This study examines the relationship between exergy variations across different desalination technologies, which provides insight into the minimum separation energy and serves as a basis for classifying desalination processes. Simultaneously, particular emphasis is placed on capacitive deionization (CDI) as an emerging desalination technology that requires only incremental advancements to overcome current limitations associated with high feed-water salinity and the restricted desalination capacity of conventional carbon-based electrodes. The integration of advanced battery materials, including sodium-ion and chloride-ion battery systems, with CDI represents a promising strategy to enhance deionization efficiency, thereby enabling the development of higher-performance desalination technologies.”