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TIMELINES - DESALINATION TECHNOLOGY

 

 Desalination, like all technologies, did not develop linearly over time. There were periods of rapid growth.

 The following table captures some of the milestones in the development of desalination technology:

Time

Events

5th Century BC

Wool condenser (Earliest known distillation process by Greek sailors)

 

3rd Century BC

Aristotle describes water cycle and distillation process

Use of solar energy by Archimedes

2nd Century BC

Egyptian distillation processes

 

1st Century AD

 

Earliest use of solar energy (for salt)

15th Century AD

 

Solar still used by an Arab Alchemist (Mouchot, 1869) for water

17th Century AD

Earliest records (Japanese sailors, distillation earthen pots/bamboo reeds)

 

1790s

Thomas Jefferson& Jacob Isaacks: US Navy Distillation: “Report on Desalination of Seawater”

 

1872

 

Early large scale solar still by the Swedish engineer Charles Wilson

1881

First commercial Desalination plant Tigne, Sleima, Malta

 

 

The age of membrane separations

The age of thermal desalination processes MSF, MED,TVC

Mid 1900

By mid 1900’s…Advances in microscopy and cell biology led to concept of the Lipid Bilayer

Membranes and semi-permeable membranes; R&D was underway towards a synthetic perm-selective membrane.

Multi stage flash (MSF) distillers developed for the US Navy to overcome the scaling problems in Multiple Effect (MED) units.  The concept was introduced by Worthen and Barbour of Bethlehem Steel Co. 1955 Patent for a 5 stage MSF unit with TBT of 77°C.

1954: Cleaver Brooks Co (later AquaChem)-four 5 stage MSF units each of 50000 gpd for the aircraft carrier Independence.

1956: four units of MSF each 500000 imperial gallons per day in Kuwait

 

Desalination by Cellulose Acetate (CA) films

1960

 

MSF unit capacity growth

MED unit capacity growth

Period

Unit capacity MIGD

Period

Unit capacity MIGD

1962

Asymmetric CA(Loeb & Sourirajan)

 1960-70

3

 

 

1963

First spiral-wound module (General Atomics)

1967

First hollow-fiber module (Du Pont)

1970

 

1972

Interfacial Composite (Cadotte)

 1971-80

5

1975

First commercial Thin Film Composite (TFC) Polyamide; Water factory (OCWD)

1979-82

5.9 (Al Khobar II KSA)

1978

First fully aromatic TFC (FT30, Cadotte)

The age of large scale units

1980

 

 1981-90

7.5

 

 

1986

Nanofiltration widely available (Fluid systems, Nitto Denko, FilmTec)

RO unit capacity growth

Period

Unit capacity MIGD

1990

 

 1990

0.2

1990-95

 

8

1990

0.3

1998

First large solvent RO sep. (methyl ethyl ketone from lube oil; Grace-Davison & Mobil Oil, Beaumont, TX)

1990-95

0.5

1996

 

12.6 (Al Taweelah-B, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

1990-95

1

2000

 

1995-2000

 

1.8

2002

16.7 (Shuweihat, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

1995-2000

 

3.3 (Um Al Nar, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

2000-02

3.8(Al Taweelah, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

 

New membrane process development

2000-2005

6

2008

17.3 (Al Taweelah-B-Extension, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

2005-06

8 (Sharjah-Layyah, UAE)

2010

 

 

 

 

2010

8.5 (Fujairah, UAE)

 






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