Environmental Impacts of Sea-Water Desalination

Mustafa Mustafa, Fatemeh Mostofi, Bachar Al-Jendi, School of the Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University Dubai Campus Mustafa Mustafa : mm507@hw.ac.uk : registration number : 091608563 Fatemeh Mostofi : fm137@hw.ac.uk : registration number : 091617071 Bachar Al Jendi : ba149@hw.ac.uk : registration number : 091611736 Abstract
Environmental Impacts of desalination is a major factor that should be considered in the design and implementation of desalination technologies, this report focuses widely on desalination and the impact of desalination on the environment, with a special focus on Al Fujairah plant in the United Arab Emirates. This report aims to describe the methods used in the Desalination process in a clear manner, list the environmental impacts of desalination, including ways of mitigating the impact of desalination on the environment.

Table of Contents:
1.1 Introduction 2.0 Desalination 2.1 An Overview 2.2 The Different Techniques in use Multi-Stage Flash (MSF) Reverse Osmosis Conclusion RO is more appealing to customers that MSF 2.3 The Negative Impact of Desalination Brine Concentrates Sea pollution and the Impact of the marine habitats Rising water temperature Noise Emissions Gas Emissions 3.0 Case Study 3.1 Fujairah Desalination Plant 3.1 Plant Description# 3.2 Brine concentrates and permeate calculations 3.3 Plants Impact on the Environment 4.0 Conclusions

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5.0 References

1.1 Introduction
With the rapid increase in world population, the demand for potable drinking water is increasing, many regions in the world are suffering from water scarcity, and these problems are aggravating by the rapid growth of population as well as the expansion of industrial and agriculture activities. many parts of the world, especially in arid and semi-arid areas such as the United Arab Emirates has shifted their attention to sea-water desalination to meet present and future demands for water, without the major desalination plants that are currently in operation in the United Arab Emirates, the country could never have hoped to transform from a desert populated by nomads to the bustling cultural meltingpot of a metropolis that it is today. The environmental characteristics of the brine and its impacts on the marine environment were always the backyard and the less concern while planning and operating RO desalination plants. So after Fujairah desalination project has been proved to be a successful approach towards meeting the UAEs water demand, now its the time to evaluate the overall scheme of the planet in order to modify the planet towards the better efficiency for the future water demands, especially considering the new types of technology introducing every day. In order to achieve this, first the current treatment system should be evaluated, and later it should be compared with the other available alternatives. This evaluation should be based on not only the resulted water quality from the treatment planets, but also base on the time, cost , environment and also the number of local experienced technicians . While considering all the mentioned considerations, this paper is only focused first on the quality of the current water produced from the different existing methods in Fujairah desalination planet, and later the suited alternatives are discussed with special focus on the cost and environmental impacts of the planet.

2.0 Desalination
2.1 An Overview

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Before this report delves into evaluating the environmental impact of desalination, it is important to clearly define what exactly desalination involves. Desalination involves extracting the salts and minerals occurring in seawater, and then processing the water in order to make it suitable for drinking by the general public, and for irrigation use, if appropriate. The process is mainly used in geographical locations where fresh water is in scarce supply. However, submarines and giant cruise ships also utilise the technology in order to provide tap water for the occupants of the sea-faring boats. Figure 1 below, (Green Office Blog, 2008), illustrates the tangible difference between the initial salty seawater and the end product clear, clean potable drinking water.

Figure 1 -Initial tumbler of saltwater, right, and the end product of desalination, left.2.2 The Different Techniques in use

there are many desalination techniques (which include, Multi stage flash, Reverse osmosis, Nuclear desalination, Freezing, Geothermal desalination, Solar humidification...etc.) however, this report will only discuss Multi Stage Flash technique, and Reverse Osmosis Techniques as they are the main processes used in Al-Fujairah plant (United Arab Emirates).
Multi-Stage Flash (MSF)

This process is by using the steam; steam condenses on pipes carrying seawater through a brine heater. Condensed water heats incoming seawater in a brine heater as it enters the system. It is then passed on to a series of stages. Successively lower ambient pressure in the stages causes the seawater to

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instantaneously boil as soon as it enters without reheating each time. Incoming seawater cools the vapour on heat exchange pipes and the cycle continues. Some specifications: -Plants typically have between 15 and 25 stages -Plant volume can vary between 1 and 15 million gallons per day -Brine heater runs between 70 and 90 degrees Celsius. Figure 2 shows the schematic presentation of a Multi-Stage desalination plant

Figure 2 - schematic presentation of multi-stage flash desalination plant

Benefits of using Multi-Stage Flash desalination: 1) A low operating cost when waste heat is used for the distillation process 2) The quality of the feed water is not as important when compared with the reverse osmosis system technology 3) The multi-stage flash system has a high gain output ratio (GOR). That is, the ratio of pounds of water produced to pounds of steam condensed in the brine heater.

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Reverse Osmosis

Another method of desalinating water is the RO (Reverse Osmosis) process. In the United Arab Emirates it is used mainly in the desalination plants located in the emirate of Sharjah. The process of osmosis involves the forcing of a solvent from a region of high solute concentration through a semi permeable membrane to a region of low solute concentration by applying a pressure in excess of the osmotic pressure. The membranes used for reverse osmosis have a dense barrier layer in the polymer matrix where most separation occurs. In most cases the membrane is designed to allow only water to pass through this dense layer while preventing the passage of solutes. This process requires that a high pressure be exerted on the high concentration side of the membrane, usually 217 bars for fresh and brackish water, and 4070 bars for seawater and that what can be used in the desalination plant for our study. This process is best known for its use in desalination, but since the early 1970s it has also been used to purify fresh water for medical, industrial, and domestic applications. Osmosis describes how solvent moves between two solutions separated by a semi permeable membrane to reduce concentration differences between the solutions. When two solutions with different concentrations of a solute are mixed, the total amount of solutes in the two solutions will be equally distributed in the total amount of solvent from the two solutions. Instead of mixing the two solutions together, they can be put in two compartments where they are separated from each other by a semi permeable membrane. The semi permeable membrane does not allow the solutes to move from one compartment to the other, but allows the solvent to move. Since equilibrium cannot be achieved by the movement of solutes from the compartment with high solute concentration to the one with low solute concentration, it is instead achieved by the movement of the solvent from areas of low solute concentration to areas of high solute concentration. When the solvent moves away from low concentration areas, it causes these areas to become more concentrated. On the other side, when the solvent moves into areas of high concentration, solute concentration will decrease. This process is termed osmosis. The tendency for solvent to flow through the

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membrane can be expressed as "osmotic pressure", since it is analogous to flow caused by a pressure differential. Osmosis is a great example of diffusion. In reverse osmosis, in a similar setup as that in osmosis, pressure is applied to the compartment with high concentration. In this case, there are two forces influencing the movement of water: the pressure caused by the difference in solute concentration between the two compartments (the osmotic pressure) and the externally applied pressure. To further explain this, the Figure 3 (Ionics Environment, 2007) shown below explains how the Reverse Osmosis works.

Figure 3 - Schematic presentation of reverse osmosis desalination plant

Conclusion RO is more appealing to customers that MSF

If we take a look at the energy required to produce one litre of water together with the cost of energy makes or breaks the need for desalination and the choice of the process. RO has a much higher yield compared to MSF. This means for the same output the intake of sea water is only one third in RO systems.

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This considerably decreases the power and other costs required for pumping sea water to the plant and disposing the spent brine. RO systems require considerable energy for pressurizing the water to the membrane filters; whereas MSF require heat energy for heating the brine before vaporisation. The technology of RO especially the membranes have drastically improved in the last decade resulting in lesser power consumption. The MSF requires around 17 kwhr /M3 of water (heating and pumping power) against 5 kwhr /M3 for RO process.

2.3 The Negative Impact of Desalination

Desalination plants have the potential for adversely affecting the environment in many ways; the location for desalination plant should be chosen carefully to minimize the effect on habitats around the plant. Direct Impacts:
Brine Concentrates

Brine concentrate is the by-product from desalination, concentrates are generally liquid substances that contains up to 20% of the treated water with TDS concentration usually greater than 36,000 mg/L. The concentrate may also contain a certain amount of chemicals used during pre-treatment and post treatment, Brine concentrate tends to sink (due to high density) when discharged into the sea water, which induces problems for the marine environment, the simplest and most common mitigation process for this kind of problem is to dilute (mix with fresh water) the concentrate before discharging it into the water to reduce the concentrates density.

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The second most common mitigation process is disposal to front of wasewater treatment plant where the concentrates are treated before being discharged. The major concern for this type of mitigation is that it depends on the level of TDS; a high level of TDS may cause disruption to the treatment process. Other mitigation systems include: Land applications: Such as irrigation spray, this provides an opportunity for beneficial use of concentrates, which can be used to irrigate salt-tolerant crops and grasses such as those in golf courses. Deep-well injections: Injecting concentrates into aquifers that are not used for drinking water Evaporation ponds: Constructed ponds where water from concentrates is allowed to evaporate while the remaining salts accumulate in the base of the pond. Zero liquid discharge: Use a type of mechanism (evaporator) to convert liquid concentrate into a dry solid. Brine concentrators: Brine concentrators can reduce the volume of concentrate to about 2 percent of feedwater flow.
Sea pollution and the Impact of the marine habitats

The effluent in the waste is heavily concentrated brine solution, after the brine solution is discharged into surface water as mentioned before; it has the potential to kill marine organisms. Although the brine solution contains natural ingredients of the seawater it may cause damage by its unnatural concentration to marine population near the plant. Another concern is the chemicals from pre-treatments and from membrane periodical cleaning can harm habitat, one example is the use of biocides such as chlorine, which is used to clean pipes or to pre-treat the water. These chemicals must be treated before they are released to the ocean. Continuous discharge of waste with high salinity and temperature to seawater means

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Continuously exposing marine organisms to unfavourable conditions that can be fatal for marine life or it may lead to permanent deformation in species composition.
Rising water temperature

The discharged waste has the potential to raise the temperature of coastal waters near the outlet; this has adverse effect on marine life and water quality.
Noise Emissions

Some Desalination plants generate noise emissions, for example, reverse osmosis process generate noise because of the use of high pressure pumps, plants should include steps to mitigate the noise pollution such as using canopies or acoustical planning.
Gas Emissions

The desalination process requires a significant amount of energy that increases carbon dioxide emissions. This increase in carbon dioxide produced has been shown to pollute the atmosphere, and worsens the effect of greenhouse gases, which in turn leads to global warming. Other gaseous emissions also include carbon monoxide, nitric oxide nitrogen dioxide, and sulphur dioxide, these air pollutants, can have a harmful impact on public health. Indirect impacts: Desalination plants can have an indirect impact on the environment, for example, the construction of water intake structures, and pipe lines to carry feed water and concentrate discharge may cause disturbance to environmentally sensitive areas, as well as the risk of polluting ground water from the drilling process when installing feed water pumps. Any leakage from the concentrate discharge pipes my percolate underground and cause damage to the groundwater aquifers.

3.0 Case Study

3.1 Fujairah Desalination Plant
Al Fujairah plant is a hybrid plant, located near Qidfa Power Station 5 kilometres to the south of Khor Fakkan When constructed, the Fujairah plant was the first hybrid plant in the Middle East, and the largest desalination hybrid plant in the world.

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3.1 Plant Description1

The Fujairah project is unique in the Middle East in that it uses a combination of two different desalination technologies, using Reverse osmosis and Multi-Stage Flash Systems. It is also one of the largest plants in the world to use this combination of technologies. This hybrid desalination system is designed to provide significant operational savings by reducing fuel consumption by up to 25 per cent compared with a similar-sized plant based only on MSF technology, other key criteria influencing the design of the desalination plant were feed water quality,
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product water requirements and compatibility with the cogeneration of electricity. The water production system at the Fujairah desalination plant is comprised of five MSF units

designed to produce 57 million l/day each and one RO unit with a design capacity of 171 million l/day. The five MSF evaporators each produce 57 million litters of distillate per day containing less than 25 parts per million total dissolved solids with a performance ratio of 8.0 kg distillate per 2326 kJ. These units were built at Doosan's Changwon facility in Korea and transported to Fujairah by sea. The first of the five MSF evaporators arrived at the project site in April 2002. Doosan was also responsible for constructing the power island, consisting of four gas turbines, two heat recovery steam generators (HRSGs) and two steam turbines in a combined cycle configuration. The output of the power plant is 656 MW, of which 120 MW is required for the desalination process and 36 MW for the transmission system. The remaining 500 MW is exported to the grid. The four gas turbines are GE Frame 9E units (model PG9171E) fitted with diverter dampers in order to enable the plant to operate in either combined cycle or open cycle mode. They are dual fuel units which use natural gas as the primary fuel and distillate oil as the back-up fuel. The 9E gas turbine has a design output of 126 MW and is capable of achieving more than 52 per cent efficiency in combined cycle. The 9E units at Fujairah are fitted with a dry low NOx combustion system, while water injection is used to reduce NOx emissions when firing diesel fuel. The gross output of the four units is 424 MW when using evaporative coolers at an ambient temperature of 46C and relative humidity of 40 per cent.
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Information from http: //www.Powerengineeringint.com/

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3.2 Brine concentrates and permeate calculations

One of the by-product from desalinating brackish water and seawater is brine concentrate, which is generated as the result of salt separation process. This by-product contains the minerals and other constitutes which are removed from saline source water. The desalination technology widely used is reverse osmosis severance separation. Figure below shows the key stream generated by a typical desalination planet. Usually 90% to 95% of the total volume of a desalination planet is constituted by concentrate.

Figure 4 - Typical discharge component of sea water desalination3

The quantity of the concentrate which is generated by a planet is usually evaluated based on the planet size and the permeate recovery rate;

Permeate recovery is also defined as a portion of saline source water flow which is converted to fresh water (permeate) flow Qp, and is measured as the percent of the saline feed flow Qf, as its shown on the following figure;

Water Treatment Engineering and Research Group, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Technical Service Centre. "ZERO DISCHARGE WASTE BRINE MANAGEMENT." Web, P2.

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Figure 5 - General Schematic of RO system4

Feed water of RO flow system is also calculated as follows;

From the data recorded from the UAE desalination plants, the concentrate and permeate can be calculated.

Water Treatment Engineering and Research Group, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Technical Service Centre. "ZERO DISCHARGE WASTE BRINE MANAGEMENT." Web, P3.

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Figure 6- Figure 3 - Chemical composition of reject brine from inland desalination plants UAE5

For finding the relevant concentrate percentage, the following formula has been applied; Q= [Concentrate (mg/l) / 0.5]
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Impact of land disposal , page 6

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And later for finding the permeate, with 0.998 rejectery value, following simple calculation is used; Pr= Q (1-0.998) According to the data in the above table the relevant concentrate of each by-product as well as the resulted permeate is calculated, and the results are represented in the following table.

Parameter Ca++ Mg++ Na+ K+ Sr++ TDS NO3 FClSO4 SiO2 HCO3NFe Mn Cu Zn Cr Al Ba As Pb Se Carbonate Total

Concentrate( mg/l) 173 311 1930 50.7 14.2 7350 15.9 1.3 2933 15.37 133.71 753 3.6 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 NA NA NA NA NA NA 13685.03

Column1 0.346 0.622 3.86 0.1014 0.0284 14.7 0.0318 0.0026 5.866 0.03074 0.26742 1.506 0.0072 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 0.0001 NA NA NA NA NA NA 27.37006

Concentrate /0.5 346 622 3860 101.4 28.4 14700 31.8 2.6 5866 30.74 267.42 1506 7.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 NA NA NA NA NA NA 27370.06

Permeate (Pr) 0.692 1.244 7.72 0.2028 0.0568 29.4 0.0636 0.0052 11.732 0.06148 0.53484 3.012 0.0144 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 0.0002 NA NA NA NA NA NA 54.74012

Figure 7- Resulted concentrate and permeate percentage, calculated by Excel

the permeate rate is 54%, which means that it almost takes 2 gallons of sea water to generate a gallon of fresh water. Thus, considering the production capacity of 120.2 million gallon per day (MGD) as 3785 m3/day, then using formula 1, the volume of generates concentrate will be:

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Qc= 120.2MGD [(100/54)-1] =102.17 MGD= 386,713 m3/day So the feed water flow, according to formula 3, will be; Qf= Qp+ Qc= 120.2 MGD + 102.2 MGD = 222.4 MGD Considering these calculations, it is established that designing the plants for higher permeate recovery rates would produce smaller concentrate and vice versa. So comparing these derived values stated in the above table with WHO values which are stated annex 3,6 of World Health Organizations publicans related to the standard quality of drinking water, can give an overall on the Fujairahs resulted water quality.

Figure 8- desalination plant discharge quality standards (DQS)

As its shown in figure 6, the PH= 7.66 is within the range stated in the above table. The rest of the minerals are not exceeding from the stated value or getting lower than them. But some minerals are missing in the water as Alabdulaaly and Khan analysed the feed , permeate and brine water of four groundwater RO plants for 9 metals, namely Al , As, Cd, Fe, Mn , Ni, Pb, Se and Z. Ni and Cu were found to be absent in all samples. All other metals were observed within the drinking water limit set by World Health Organization (WHO)7 So that means the size of the plant should not exceed from the specified design, which directs to the specified recovery permeate, in order to control the amount of the concentrate within the specified amount by WHO. The results show both permeate and concentrate recorded from both thermal and membrane or RO processes. The thermal process which leads to the better final quality is more expensive, but as UAE has a good experience with this method, this method is still widely used. Beside the RO method, which is
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"Handbook of Drinking Water Quality." Journal of Environmental Health 1 Oct. 2003: 469. Print. Impact of land disposal , page 7

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the more recent method is used in the planet, but with the specific volume as mentioned earlier in order to control the by-product percentage in the water.

3.3 Plants Impact on the Environment

The planets impact on the environment can be categorized according to different stages of the project, as construction, operation and waste disposal stage of the project. Firstly, as for the construction stage, it is assumed that the site location of the plant would have a significant environmental impact on delicate local ecosystems containing heritage listed sand dunes, sensitive wetlands and protected marine areas. Secondly, there are a number of environmental concerns associated with the operation of a desalination planet, including, High energy use and resulting greenhouse gas production, Impacts to marine ecology and physical destruction to the marine environment. Its mainly because of the energy used in the desalination process is primarily electricity and heat. So, considerable amounts of greenhouse gasses are produced by desalination plants due to the high energy requirements. A desalination plant using reverse osmosis technology would require less energy than other desalination technologies such as distillation. Overseas research has showed that the more single ecological problem related with desalination plants that use seawater is that organisms living with in the vicinity of the desalination plant are sucked into the desalination equipment. And finally desalination plants produce liquid wastes that may contain high salt concentrations, chemicals used during defueling of plant equipment and pre-treatment, as well as, toxic metals (which are most likely to be present if the discharge water was in contact with metallic materials used in construction of the plant facilities). It is also to be noted that liquid wastes may be either discharged directly into the sea or combined with other discharges (e.g., power plant cooling water or sewage treatment plant effluent) before ocean discharge. Instead of being discharged into a sewer for treatment in sewage treatment plant, or dried out.8

"Desalination Fact Sheet." Desalination Fact Sheet. Version 1. Sydney Coastal Councils Ordinary, 18 June 2011. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <www.ffc.org.au/FFC_files/desal/Whatisdesalinationfactsheet-1.pdf>.

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4.0 Conclusions
In brief, it is important to realize that there is still not enough information on the impact of desalination discharge on the marine environment. It is more important to be emphasized when dealing with the large RO operated desalination plants, such as Fujairah. So thats why it is suggested to take the precautionary principle while planning the future environmental policy in order to protect the marine environment while preventing potential risk. The main issues regarding precautionary principal in desalination plants as for the environment includes: (a) (b) Marine outfall design and constructed for best dilution and for minimizing disturbances to marine environment and to sediment movement. Removal of harmful by-products such as ferric, not only for the discoloration and aesthetic matter, but also for the preventing of a potential risk for the marine environment due to the high loads and accumulation with time. (c) (d) Avoiding discharge of cleaning organic solutions. Updating the exciting treatment technology towards the better time, cost efficiency, while maintain the standard water quality.

5.0 References
a. b. P2. c. P3. d. e. 469. Print. f. g. factsheet-1.pdf>. Impact of land disposal , page 7 "Desalination Fact Sheet." Desalination Fact Sheet. Version 1. Sydney Coastal Councils Impact of land disposal, page 6 "Handbook of Drinking Water Quality." Journal of Environmental Health 1 Oct. 2003: Water Treatment Engineering and Research Group, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Technical Service Centre. "ZERO DISCHARGE WASTE BRINE MANAGEMENT." Web, Information from http: //www.Powerengineeringint.com/ Water Treatment Engineering and Research Group, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE

INTERIOR Technical Service Centre. "ZERO DISCHARGE WASTE BRINE MANAGEMENT." Web,

Ordinary, 18 June 2011. Web. 5 Feb. 2012. <www.ffc.org.au/FFC_files/desal/Whatisdesalination-

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