Brackish water

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Hello, People often use the terms like brackish water, saline water and brine in desalination indusrty. I want to know What exactly these different term means ?

1 Answer

  1. Saline water is a general definition for all water that has salinity (i.e., total dissolved solids (TDS) concentration) of 1000 mg/L or higher. Water with TDS concentration below 1000 mg/L is considered fresh (low salinity) water. Brackish water is saline water with concetration between 1000 mg/L and 15000 mg/L; and seawater or high salinity water is water with TDS of 15000 to 48000 mg/L. Brine is concentrated saline water. When saline water (brackish water or seawater) is treated by desalination the two main streams generated by the desalination process are fresh water and brine. The brine contains the salts separated from the fresh water during the desaliantion process. Brine is also referred to as concetrate. For seawater desalianton plants for example approximately 50 % of the source seawater is converted into fresh water and therefore the concentrate has approximately two times more salts (two times higher salinity concentration) than the soruce seawater. For Paciifc Ocean water for example, whcih has tycpial salinity of 35000 mg/L, typcial desalination plant will generate brine of 2 x 35000 = 70000 mg/L. So in summary, brackish water, seawater and brine differ mainly be the abount of salts (salinity/TDS concentration) they have. Nikolay Voutchkov