Removal and reuse of Salts from water

To face the current and future demands for fresh water and water reuse, sustainable desalination of seawater, groundwater and wastewater is required. In this context, new technology is needed, with the capacity to remove the salts in a reusable form. Low energy use and avoidance of harmful chemical discharge are further demands for sustainable desalination.

Wetsus focuses on the development of treatment technology for high strength streams (brines, spent caustics, bleed streams, etc) and on desalination of seawater, brackish/fresh water and wastewater. Several new approaches based on various know-how disciplines are being studied by Wetsus. Fields like electrochemistry, crystallization, membrane separation, adsorption and biotechnology are combined in the research projects.

Capacitive Deionisation
This is an example of a new way of removing salts from liquid streams, based on combined application of electrochemistry and adsorption. Capacitive electrodes are placed in the stream to be treated. Ions will migrate to the capacitive electrodes where they will be adsorbed. As a result fresh water will be produced (1).

 

 

 

 


(1) Principle of capacitive deionsation