Desalination Technologies

This Short Course will equip students with:

The review of knowledge and know-how of reverse osmosis desalination technology. Several case studies, national and international, will be taken as examples, to highlight the levers for mastering the complexity of desalination by reverse osmosis.
Sharing of know-how acquired in the studies, construction and operation of desalination plants built in Morocco, with benchmarks in relation to world experience.

The Courses

Session 1 : Introduction to desalination technologies

1. Introduction: Desalination, as the first unconventional water resource
2. General notions on sea and brackish waters
3. Overview of desalination technologies
4. Performance analysis criteria and technological choices: product quality, specific energy consumption, technical limits.
5. Technological trends in the field of desalination: state of the art and R&D

Session 2 : Desalination by reverse osmosis: Principles, performances and constraints

1. Identification of seawater/brackish water resources
2. Identification of pre-treatment
3. Reverse osmosis blocks
4. Post-treatment: water produced and compliance with the drinking standards
5. Brine discharge (characterization-environmental impact-discharge method)

Session 3 : Desalination by reverse osmosis : Improvement

1. Studies: analysis of existing data, choice of indicators, choice of sectors, equipment, etc.
2. Construction of desalination stations: presentation of constraints, adaptations, improvements
3. Operation and maintenance: how to maintain the performance of reverse osmosis plants?

Summary

In Morocco, the use of desalination, as an alternative to deal with the scarcity of resources, should continue, as provided for in the various projections of the strategic development plans for the water sector. For drinking water, the National Water Strategy of 2009 estimated the water needs by desalination for food use, at 400 million cubic meters per year by 2030, against 14 million cubic meters per year, in 2016.

Description

The proposed training will enable participants to meet the challenges related to the difficulties of operating desalination techniques in general, and membrane techniques in particular (reverse osmosis, nanofiltration, microfiltration and ultrafiltration and electrodialysis), taking into account the complexity of maintaining performance membranes, characterized, among other things, by their lifetimes.

Key benefits

The operating principles, the fields of application, the technical particularities, the specific performances, and the limits of each of the desalination technologies, will be discussed.

Who should attend

The different modules of this training are aimed at engineers and technicians working in fields using desalination technologies (drinking water and wastewater, industries, agriculture, food industries, pharmaceuticals, etc.).