Thermal Processes for Seawater Desalination: Multi-effect Distillation, Thermal Vapor Compression, Mechanical Vapor Compression, and Multistage Flash

Despite the fact that global water is apparently abundant, almost half of the world faces water scarcity. Owing to the alarming rise in the population level along with increasing demand of water due to the change in lifestyle, providing fresh water will be a big challenge in the near future. Considering this acuteness, freshwater production using desalination is one of the prospective and promising solutions in the years to come. The current chapter emphasizes on the thermal desalination methods used for the production of fresh water. The main desalination technologies discussed in the chapter are multistage flash and multi-effect distillation, thermal vapor compression, and mechanical vapor compression. A description regarding each of these technologies along with their discrete design configuration and materials used for the plant construction has also been discussed in detail.