Hi Liv, To make thing clearer, brine management (or "brine treatment") needs to be thought of as a two part process: 1. Volume Minimisation (Process Technology Intensive) 2. Brine/Salt Disposal (Civil Infrastructure Intensive) or Resource Recovery & Sale (Process Technology Intensive). The technology used in step one (which may include multiple process units) will affect what you do at step 2; vice versa. Regarding your recommended technology, vacuum evaporation is one of the tools in the toolbox and each technology needs to be considered on a case by case basis.  If you are starting with a brackish or saline solution I'm sure you can reduce the cost of the project (CAPEX & OPEX) by placing an RO (or EDR) up-front of a thermal process which will then treat the resultant brine.  You will however increase the complexity of the overall process.  If you are starting with brine and disposing of mixed salt via landfill, the typical approach is to use a falling film evaporator (FFE), then create a salt slurry via a forced circulation crystalliser (FCC) and you will usually use a centrifuge for dewatering.  There are many variations of this treatment train regarding the pre-treatment. Cheers, Matt. Dr Matthew Brannock CEng, CSci, MIChemE, RPEQ matthew@​​​saltwatersolutions​​​​​.​com.au ​ ​​ www.​​saltwatersolutions​​​.​com.au  ​​ www.aqmb.net

Published January 19, 2018 02:56 by Matthew Brannock, Technical Director at Salt Water & AqMB Software