|
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)
|
