Green Desalination Technologies: Electrostatic and hydro-magnetic Desalination Techniques
Unlike the conventional thermal/mechanical desalination methods, which separate water from salts, the hydro-magnetic and the electrostatic techniques separate the salt, in the form of ions, from the water stream. The extracted ions are then used to produce several industrial products, such as Cl2 and NaOH. Most of the commercial techniques suffer from either high cost of energy per m3 of fresh water in case of thermal methods, or high cost of maintenance in the case of reverse osmosis methods, in addition to the environmental issues associated with discharging highly concentrated brine. The environmental impact could be in the form waste lands to dispose the salty brine, harmful effect of the brine waste on the underground water, or adverse effects on marine life. The proposed techniques have several advantages over the existing techniques, including high water recovery ratio, low maintenance cost, efficient energy recovery, environmental friendly, and economical as the system could produce simultaneously several industrial by-products (H2, NaOH, Cl2, and many other products) instead of discharging the highly concentrated brine to the environment.
