Assessment of desalination technologies for high saline brine applications — Discussion Paper

Treatment and/or disposal of concentrated brines, which have total dissolved solids content in the region of 70,000 ppm up to full saturation, are a common and important problem around the world. The success of any desalination technology for such an application depends on the reliability of the process, product quality, capital cost, energy consumption, complexity of the process and safe disposal. A comprehensive study of the reasons why desalination technologies have limited scope in the treatment/disposal of these brines is considered in terms of economical and technical aspects. Zero liquid discharge systems and other promising desalination technologies (such as osmotic power plants and freeze-melting processes) which could be used for treating high saline brines have also been investigated in this paper.