One of the biggest concerns around Desalination and RO is the release of super concentrated Brine. The technology offers many positives but the negative side cannot be ignored! Studies has been done in the ocean around harbor areas and found the concentrations of heavy metals toxins are much higher where desalination plants are installed. This will affect the ecology and water life systematically in these areas and ultimately end up in the fish we consume. RO has the same negatives and although the release of brine is highly regulated, the enforcement is the issue in many countries, especially developing countries. I have come across countless RO systems where the brine is merely released into ground water, today in countries like Pakistan, India etc the ground water is contaminated with heavy metals, toxins, phosphorus etc. With these systems becoming less costly and more popular, I am afraid the negative environmental impact is only increasing...
Published by Dave Gaybba, Managing Director
1 Comment
Dave,
Of course there is pros and cons to desalination and RO. In fact, one of the previous articles that I wrote and that was published on Water Network dealt with this issue directly.
Yes, the brine needs to be dealt with, and there will probably be in the not to distant future technology to handle brine stream treatment effectively.
One item worth mentioning is RO pretreatment. Using pretreatment mechanisms to limit/reduce heavy metals, toxins, phosphorus before entering the RO system will allow significantly lower concentrations of these parameters in the brine streams that are discharged.
I agree that other technologies need to be utilized in addition to RO to handle these parameters in third world/emerging countries with RO handling TDS reductions primarily.
Published by Nick Nicholas, App Eng/Technical Director at Genesis Water Technologies, Inc.