There is significance of water in every living organisms life. According to science life started in water and organisms depend on water for sustaining life. But the condition is degrading day by day. Also when it comes to fresh water, the situation is more critical.
Due to industrialization, population growth, global warming the shortage of fresh water is becoming a serious concern. If we talk about India, more than 50% of the population has no access to safe drinking water and about 200,000 people die every year for access to safe water. (source~ Financial Express)
By Manas Ranjan Hota
“India is currently facing the biggest crisis in its history. And no, it’s not COVID-19. India is suffering from one of the world’s worst national water crises. In fact, it is considered the center of the global water and sanitation crisis. The problem is so big, our lives, livelihoods, and futures hang in the balance. And no, it’s not a problem that can be easily resolved by water pumps, a purifier, and retail bottled water.”
The average annual per capita water availability in the years 2001 and 2011 was assessed as 1816 cubic meters and 1545 cubic meters respectively which may further reduce to 1486 cubic meters and 1367 cubic meters in the years 2021 and 2031 respectively.
But in order to deal with this many countries have built Desalination Plant, if we drive our attention towards Israel`s Desalination Plant we can understand how the seawater has been converted into drinking water. Desalination is a process that takes away mineral components from saline water.
The Ashkelon seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination plant was the largest in the world when it was commissioned. The project was developed as a BOT(Build-Operate-Transfer) by a consortium of three international companies: Veolia water, IDE, Technologies and Elran. In March 2006, it was voted ‘Desalination Plant of the Year’ in the Global Water Awards.
One more example of Desalination plant is found in Japan , In an article published by Government of Japan:
Water Resources in Japan:
Water shortages have become rare in recent years but the shortage in 1994 covered almost all Japan, when approximately 16 million people were affected at least once by suspended or reduced water supply, and agriculture suffered production losses of 140 billion yen.
Methods for converting seawater to fresh water have long relied on evaporation, in which seawater is first evaporated and the steam then condensed into freshwater, but that requires tremendous energy, with the additional problem of carbon emissions.
Satoshi Shimoyama, general manager of Water Treatment Division of Toray Industries, Inc., takes a long-term view. “At the beginning of the 1960s, U.S. President Kennedy advocated research of desalinization as a national project, saying, ‘If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from salt water, that it would be in the long-range interests of humanity.’
Toray has directed attention to that idea, too. Putting our expertise in fibers to good use, we started researching the area from an early date.” Inspired by basic research started in the United States, Toray’s young engineers began in 1968 to develop a membrane filter called a “reverse osmosis membrane” (RO membrane).
The resulting membrane treatment method, using that membrane, separates the salt from seawater by passing it through a membrane filter having minute pores only 0.6-0.8 nm in diameter, thus providing fresh water. Being less expensive and less energy-intensive than the conventional evaporation method, the membrane treatment method is environmentally friendly.
Toray’s RO membrane has been introduced to 76 countries around the world. The cumulative amount of membranes shipped, if converted into water, is the equivalent of about 60 million tons of fresh water every day. That corresponds to the daily water requirements of 420 million people, making the technology particularly welcome to nations with dry climates in Africa and the Middle East, where it provides much-needed drinking water.
And as I mentioned above how the water shortage in India is escalating, methods involving Desalination Plant can to a great extent be usefull.
