A brief overview of the desal ...

A brief overview of the desal industry reveals abundant evidence of successful brackish water desalination plants. The US total desal cpacity is dominated by RO brackish water desalination. Desal plant operators accross the US have accumulated a vast expertise with BWRO: conception, dimesioning, membrane selection, scaling prevention, brine deep well injection... BWRO is widely implemented globally- from small single RO module systems to very large plants. But the lower salinity of the water does not necessarily implies that BWRO is more straightforward than SWRO. One should not overlook the potential complexity of seasonal quality variations of underground brackish water. Water quality variations may have important consequences on scaling and anti-scalant dosage. Also experience in the Near East has shown that the salinity of underground water may increase during the lifetime of a plant. Therefore engineers should carefully consider when designing the plant. This may be less critical for very small plants. Agadir (Morocco) is a rather good exemple for extensive use of small scale low cost BWRO by farmers.