I spend my workdays operating a desalination plant. The process explanation here is simplified, understandable and addresses most issues, though not in detail. That would take volumes of material and actually would require an extended commitment on the reader's part. Yes, there are alternate ways to desalinate ocean water - but not all have reached a level wherein they are economically viable to use on a large scale. Just consider that each location is unique with its own set of advantages and challenges. Depending upon location - the bureaucrats, environmental agencies, scientists and developers have worked out a compromise that is as reasonable as possible. Suffice to say - 'How Desalination Works' is Well Done. Thank you for this presentation.
Simple wisdom is, evry solution is simple, only hard thing is the way to find it. If its complicated , something is not right, but this is step forward too...
@@-Subtle- They said in the video that it goes back into the ocean. In theory the salt content should remain the same since all the fresh water we use does eventually vaporize and return as rain.
to all the people saying "why so complex? use a still": The energy required to evaporate water is enormous. to be able to filter water without evaporating it is an enormous efficiency boost.
@@jorgechristophergarzasepul3209 that possibly works in areas where its very humid, but not all places next to saltwater are very humid, and making them less humid for a comparitively small amount of water (maybe a large bucket per cubic kilometer) probably isnt a good idea. Theres a reason water isnt listed as huge component in the air we breath, theres not that much.
@@jorgechristophergarzasepul3209 At 76 degrees and 50% humidity, a cubic yard of air holds .5 g of water vapor, so you'd have to process two cubic yards to get 1 ml. To get a liter of water, you'd have to process 2000 cubic yards of air. In most countries, each person uses about 3700 liters per day (that's per capita water consumption for all purposes, i.e., total water used in the country divided by the number of people), so to get one persons daily allotment of water, you'd have tp process 7.4 Million cubic yards of air. Condensing water from air in large quantities requires a huge amount of energy. You'd probably be better off using hydrolysis to create O2 and H2 out of seawater and then combusting it to turn it back into fresh water.
@@royalgilpin4922 yeah, perhaps reverse osmosis combined with boiling off the brine to just leave salt would keep that out of the ocean. That would likely undo some of the energy efficiency, but it may solve that problem.
Very well done. I'm a water treatment operator at an R/O plant that treats brackish groundwater. It is an energy intense process, but allows for non traditional sources to be utilized.
she told us what all the other filters had in them but not what the semi permeable membranes were made of, I can't seem to find the answer, would you happen to know what they are made of?
@@nicolebacon3230 they are made out of polypropylene and into the foil there are tiny holes made with an laser, so that only the water molecules can pass through them
VERY informative. This should be shown in middle school science classes followed up by a field trip to a Desalination facility. This is what I would do as a science teacher.
The brine solution can be put out in open tanks , where the salt can be made and used for human consumption after processing, or for industrial use as it is. Thus reducing the cost further.
To all of you in the comments who work at water treatment plants and others who work with and treat water in various ways all over this country I just want to say thank you. Thank you so very much for all of your hard work and commitment. The hours may be long the pay may be crap and you definitely don’t get enough thanks. So again thank you, I see you, I hear you and every time I drink a glass of clean water or enjoy a warm, clean shower I appreciate you. - from Oakland, California 🙏🏽
@@08tnt80 solar distillation. Consider the climate, it's got as shit, lots of sunshine, making a solar distiller is pretty cheap, and doesn't need filtration.
Osmosis occurs in your body too :) When water passes through your body, your kidneys are salty, so the water gets absorbed, while blood passes through.
We should definitely invest in desalinization technology to make it more affordable and efficient. Perhaps we could find uses for the salt and other minerals found in seawater while we're at it. I also have an idea for an air purification system on a massive scale. Build a large building specially dedicated to this purpose, it would have many vents on the outside for sucking in the air, then have numerous layers of filters such a large thick mass of cotton like material that would catch alot of the particulates in the air. Then suck the air through to a main cylinder which brings the air from the bottom way up a significant height, at the top of this cylinder would be a system of water spraying nozzles to make lots of mist which saturates the air and essentially comes down like artificial rain all through the cylinder (rain plays a large role in cleaning the air), this would have the effect of catching much of the remaining pollution in the air. The air is brought into a final chamber which is designed to catch the water and brings the clean air to outgoing vents at the top of the building. The water should be reused as many times as possible to cut usage and cost and eventually be added to the sewage system. I think such a facility would significantly drop pollution in large cities like Los Angeles and Beijing where pollution is a big problem. I'm no engineer and I have no idea what such a filtration building would cost to build and operate, but I'd like someone build off this idea and make it feasible. I would certainly like to breathe cleaner air and I'm sure plenty of other people do as well. Just wanted to put that idea out there...
The problem with this is the water mist slowly gains acidity, and becomes less and less effective over time. Filtering it through mixed ion exchange resin could help, but I argue it's easier to make cleaner fuels, instead of just cleaning the mess. It's easiest to just not make a mess instead of cleaning it up.
@@radioanon4535 The water would be replaced as time goes on, reuse it as much as you can but not forever. I'm all for clean energy, I simply wanted to propose a way to clean our air on a large scale. Many big cities have horrible air quality and would benefit greatly from some form of air filtration system. We have water treatment plants, why not something similar for the air?
Another way, in a small scale life saving scenario is to cup two glass bottles together horizontally. Fill one with sea water and boil it. Ideally burring it in sand to retain more heat from the fire. The steam released is collected in the other bottle and condensation builds up to about 80% of the original bottle. So there is about a 20% loss but that could just be vapor. The water is 100% safe to drink. Great if you're stranded on an island.
Neglected to mention that it is a very expensive process. Yet, most global coastal communities (who can afford it) heavily rely on it and neglect to gather rainfall.
@Am Pa, yeah collecting rainfall in coastal area is a natural desalination process. No energy required for desalination, just collect and store. That's what people have been doing for millennia. But maybe desalination plants are more economical solution on a big scale since they can produce water 24/7/365 and without big reservoirs and rain collectors.
@@alterego157 Maybe you're right in that the governments figure why bother with rainwater collection if it never rains over half the year. But I don't think it's more economical because the collection and processing is very low cost. But maybe governments don't care about costs because what's the competition? And it's easier, though not more cost effective, to just desalinate sea water instead.
Reason why UAE, Saudi Arabia and other rich Eastern Countries uses this, is not only because they are far from any fresh water sources, but also because they have way than enough to spend on and maintaining these facilities, unlike lands in poverty, such as Ghana and other African-coastal countries.
The Random Dude XD yes but this could be run on renewable energy as well atm water in the golf (saudi) is at around 30 sr per sq m about 8 usd that number was raised from almost half that due to rises in the cost of gas so im assuming if we were able to cut energy cost the cost or clean water would drop as well
The Random Dude XD yes but this could be run on renewable energy as well atm water in the golf (saudi) is at around 30 sr per sq m about 8 usd that number was raised from almost half that due to rises in the cost of gas so im assuming if we were able to cut energy cost the cost or clean water would drop as well
BREAKING NEWS! The crab that got sucked into the system at 00.27 has exited unharmed at 05.14. NO marine life was harmed during this process. YT algorithms are effin' UP!
For one thing, LA should definitely be getting it's water from desalination. With properly developed nuclear power, this can be done economically and safely during off peak energy use, and the water can be pumped and stored in upstream lakes and reservoirs.
The first reason why we are not building this, Is because it costs a rich mans fortune to make make it. However, There might be a time and place where money be damned, We need fresh water now! So we might start building these water plants for survival sake.
This process is very costly and it requires higher maintenance cost time to time. Nowadays, Desalination method is commonly used in gulf countries and nothern region of african continent nations.
It's thought the next major world wide war will be over access to water. If so, you (and I) being in a high rainfall, high fresh water catchment will mean we're in the centre of a big battleground.
I was watching another video on this subject and they said it would be far easier and cheaper to use brackish water, which isn't nearly as salty as seawater.
Jan. 9, 2020---Thanks for the video as I always wondered how it worked and what happened to the non water stuff. Only thing missing in this video is the cost? Would it be cheaper to make several smaller ones along a coast line in case one has to be shut down vs one big one? And what is the normal water output for these things and cost of piping needed to get it from the plant to where it's needed?
The lack of fresh water will be a major crisis in the future and in future space travel. RO and dehumidification will be the savior in the future. Very good expose.
Well, Cape Town is going to run out of water next month or so. Man miss-management on a grand scale. We are going through El Nino events and the politicians knew about this. ANC & DA etc. You cannot keep expanding and allowing growth without taking into consideration a finite water supply. Fix it when it is too late is no help now. Thanks for posting this and greetings from Africa.
David Wootton the thing is they are not even letting us know if they are trying or even talking about alternative way to supply water... cape town population increases every year with people coming from rural areas thinking they can find work here and students who study here and end up staying etc. Idk what the people in the dapartment of water and sanitation are doing in their cosy offices. Those small little dams won't supply cape town forever. So what now we wait till the dams fill again, switch the taps back on,population increases, people misuse consumption of water once again and we end up with another drought and Bob's your uncle
Don't say anything about the water Crisis unless you've done your own research. The amount of things that were wrong in your statement is enough to me that you have no idea what is actually going on. Please read some more valid sources before you comment again.
I was involved in developing these types of systems for agri-businesses and oil and gas projects. Very simple and easy to understand tutorial. However the caveat [and there is always a down side to nearly every human endeavor] is that the R.O. brine outfall has become a potential problem for the Arab States like Saudi Arabia and UAE among others. The brine concentration has become a problem ,even in the vast oceans near these water purification plants, due to massive water conversion process that has affected the aquatic flora and fauna [plants and animals] to a degree not anticipated when first proposed. But oh well..life sucks then you die.
RO is a membrane process that act as a molecular filter to remove up to 95-99% of all dissolved minerals, 95-97% of most dissolved organics, and more than 98% of biological and colloidal matter from water the way this is done is to pass the water over a membrane under pressure.Depending on the raw water quality a larger or a smaller part of the water goes through the membrane, leaving most of the dissolved solids behind. These solids and the leftover water(called reject or brine) are made to leve the membrane surface area and is piped to drain.The water which goes through the membrane and gets purified is called the permeate water.
This is absolutely fantastic, no more scarse clean water and no more risk of wars about it. And whether the high costs of it, it’s well worth it and it saves costs for an expensive war about it.
That'll be great if they made this simpler somehow, which I'm confident is very hard obviously, but the country needs this outhere as medicine is to people. And countries that need water really need to invest in this.
Very impressive specially the energy recovery machine. On the other hand I’ve been to few countries that use this process and they tell you to not drink the tab water.
Something's up with those countries because I've lived in places where desalinated water is consumed from tap. The water usually doesn't taste good, but if they do it correctly, it is safe.
@@ampa4989 To be honest I even fear taking shower in it as it is so hard and bad for the body. That is how it is in some of the gulf middle eastern countries that use cleaned ocean water. But I guess it could be different in other counties as you've stated.
@@jjenko6366 Hard water isn't actually bad for you. It, in fact, has health benefits because of the minerals. It just tastes bad. I've been to the UAE. The water tastes bad. It is safe for consumption.
@@ampa4989 It definitely is not safe for drinking. They got warning signs everywhere that state don't drink tap water. I know cause I used to work there unless they made major changes within the last two years. Same thing with Kuwait and Qatar from my experience.
@@jjenko6366 That maybe be true for SOME public taps. It's like in Cyprus and Malta. Some taps are not desalinated water because it is so expensive. But home taps are safe. Or they at least have two taps. One for drinking and the other for dishwashing, showering, etc. The second tap might not be treated like the first or it might be collected rain water. Or maybe it's only partially desalinated/treated like some taps in certain Thai islands. Or it could be the pipes are not safe. But true, desalinated water is completely potable.
The energy to drive the pump could be provided by a matching wave power stations, furthermore, the excess of electric energy produced could be used to boil the water instead of (r. osmosis) filter mechanism.
Would have already build it for local electricity if the site is available for that. Desalination is likely tied to the grid or by its own dedicated power plant.
There are other methods. For example, you can use a vacuum pump to reduce pressure so that sea water boils (leaving the salt behind) at room temperature (evaporator) which also drops the vapour temperature. You run the vapor through a heat exchanger to absorb heat for the surrounding air. Then run through a condenser, when vacuum is released, the water and vapor becomes very hot and runs through a heat exchanger that is cooled by the sea water inflow. So the desalinated water is cooled to it;s original temperature but at the same time the seawater is heated which increases it's vapor temp much like the way a still works. This is done for efficiency as the warmed sea water requires far less vacuum to vaporise. Therefore far less mechanical energy is required to maintain the system. This is basically the same principle as an air con & doesn't require any filters.
In my suggested videos. Not only do I see this as a solution for towns and cities suffering from lack of fresh water, but I can see this also battling rising ocean water from melting ice caps. Also bringing more salinity to the ocean as the melting fresh water ice threatens to desalinize the ocean water slowing down the conveyor belt.
A wind farm to power a desalinization plant? Now there's a damn fine idea. You can also use the power from the wind farm to boil water and further clean it. Lot's of things you could do with free energy.
This process could have been a lot faster and easier with more than %95 yield, if, you started with a sea salt plant. In the method shown in this video they try to extract the potable water from the salt water. If, you extract the salt by evaporating the water, you obtain mineral rich salt crystals. All you have to do is to do this in a condensation chamber to collect the evaporated water, which you can filter even further easily and quickly to safe levels to drink. After this, you can use the obtained salt, in your diet, or sell it with a higher price than the rock salt, advertising that, it is rich in minerals. Or, you can pour it back to the ocean.
I live in Michigan, where 20 percent of the world's freshwater is in the great lakes. Ironic that a huge portion of our country has so little fresh water. CA, NV, NM, even parts of Colorado. We have huge stores of fresh water in Michigan.
Most of Michigans food taste better as a result of your Huge water supply because the tap water that restaurants use there is comparable to bottled water making the food you cook with it taste better than almost anywhere on the planet. I noticed when moved to Florida from Michigan that the quality of the taste of food is night and day.
This is great it only takes a massive amount of energy to do this and the leftover brine is super toxic so when you dump it back into the ocean it destroys oxygen levels this is perfect its not like a solar furnace could be used and the leftover salt could be used in other areas
@@kenneth9874 it would make a lot more sense they could even dump it on salt flats and let nature finish it up but all that takes extra money and too many people are greedy
Why send the salt brine back out to the ocean? It could poured out into settling pools and allowed to evaporate into Sea Salt, which could then be sold for additional revenue to help cover operating costs of the plant. Maybe not for human consumption, but road salt or other industrial applications? But I'm no expert. I'm sure there's a reason.
@@shamanjitsingh7267 And yet there are numerous companies around the world who's sole source of revenue is salt. Making it has very little overhead. Cheap as salt is, it's even cheaper to produce, so there is still a profit margin. It may not be the cash cow oil or electricity is, but it's revenue that's getting pumped right back out into the estuaries, killing marine life.
@@shamanjitsingh7267 If it were so easy to make salt the water crisis would be over? LOL. What? Never said desalination was easy. I said making the salt out of that leftover brine was super easy, with very little overhead. Try to keep up.
There are many methods for desalinization. The simplest one for a farm or emergency use would be a destilator, where you head the water and the steam will be your pure water, while the salt accumulates at the botton of the heating device.
@@josealmeida5768 simple but horrible yield The video was actually pretty good. The big stuff gets filtered out first and then the salt water gets pushed through a series of membranes at really high pressure to leave the salt behind. That's the gross simplification.
Why not use a solar mill? Sea water is gradually pumped in to evaporation tanks, the clear, angled tops of those tanks warms the water and fresh water vapor condenses on the clear angled tops where the droplets run down into collection canals focused into one collection tank. The natural waves can provide the necessary energy to pump the water from the sea to the evaporation tanks.
The effective materials for filter design could include limestone to neutralize biological matter and powder charcoal to neutralize chemical material and then the sand to filter debris
Or for non water plentiful areas, pump in seawater to special reservoirs (at ground level) then focus the sun (using fresnel or other magnifier/focusers ) onto the water to evaporate it at higher speed, then have a USDUS* inside a giant cylinder (with a shade covering ) to cause the water to condense (using super hydrophobic surface) ; the evaporated water might be best to go upwards "Diagonally" to keep the condenser cylinder tower (huge) of the way of the super hot solar evaporator reservoir ; so we should get lots of water evaporating going diagonally form a very humid "cloud" of sorts in the shaded condenser tower, where would then condense on the relatively cooler USDUS to again get drained to holding tanks; worth a try. Free solar, almost free seawater pumped in, thankfully most potable water shortage areas are in sunny solar places, making this a possibility at least IMHO. IF the humidity is high (ie like 100%) the Dewpoint is the same as the ambient air temp so just shading the USDUS condenser should work fine to condense the water at a good enough rate (research), especially if the USDUS has a super hydrophobic surface which has been shown to increase significantly condensation; the condensation could be increased further by cooling the USDUS more, such as on the top side use non-potable water "Misted" to cool the whole condenser and USDUS by simple evaporative "almost Free" cooling (but this is on the top side not mixed with condensate on bottom side) . So seawater is pumped in across flat desert to ground level reservoir where is solar heated to evaporate faster, then thru Diagonal "Duct" to Condenser tower with USDUS inside collecting condensate to holding tanks with added cooling on the top of the Shaded Condenser Tower by "Misting" non-potable (ie seawater) to the the evaporation cooling effect to make the Dewpoint even lower which should increase rate of condensation on the bottom of the USDUS. Other non-potable water "might" be appropriate if the sea or lakes are too far to pump cheaply to the ground level evaporator reservoir. * upside down umbrella shape (USDUS)
Are you serious? People have been boiling seawater and catching the steam for a very long time, and ending up with distilled water. Beyond that, humans can boil swamp water or any bad water and get the useable stuff.
The problem is that it is a very costly process. Water with remarkable salts concentration like the sea water scales RO membranes like nobody`s business
I was thinking the same thing about the LA to SF high-speed rail project. Increasing the fresh water supply would have been a much more valuable and important "legacy" for our governor here in California for potable drinking water supply, landscape irrigation, farming and fighting fires. Instead we are spending 100 billion dollars to build a single-purpose train route that 15 years from now will go less than half as fast as our airplanes already go today. People love to boast that the electric trains are better for the environment than aircraft (and they are more efficient mile-per-mile), but you have to add the environmental impact of hundreds of millions of hours of diesel construction equipment operating for 15 years to build 500 miles of rail line when flying in an air corridor is free. Plus, long term, what's easier and better for the environment, maintaining a 2 mile long runway or 500 miles of rail line? Do your research, folks. This money could have been better spent elsewhere.
Your governor is your problem,CAL is becoming a third world country ,solve homeless population and illegal immigration might be $ well spent. Is a governor who abdicates giving your state back to Mexico going to be his real legacy,and furthermore all the people who make the money to pay for infrastructure are moving out,so good luck any endeavor you conjure up.
People might take your comment more seriously if you actually knew how to write. Stop with the histrionics. California is not "becoming a third world country". You seem to have it confused with Louisiana.
@joecugo - just checked in on wikipedia's list of US states poverty rates. The state with the highest poverty rate is Mississippi with 21.9% poverty rate. Louisiana is not far behind at 19.9% and California is 35th with 16.4% poverty rate. Btw, it was super easy and quick to check. If you're going to say something spending one minute to check if you're right or not rather than just being lazy and throwing insults like "libtard" and thinking that you won the argument. Facts over feelings my friend. One last thing, this is a video about desalination. How in the hell did this become another California sucks thread? Enough with the snowflakism, I swear people on the right just want to bash others since they think so little of themselves and project it on others. It's getting old. Pick yourself up by the boot straps and make the world a better place rather than doing your keyboard activism, crybaby antics. You're seriously just embarrassing yourselves. And we'll try to avoid the word "California" since it's obviously a trigger word for you. We'll try to keep youtube comments as a safe space just for you. smh
At 1:24 in the video, where did you get the number for the amount of fresh water used by EACH person annually of 1,000 m3 (264,000 gallons) from? That number has to be WAY off -- that is 2.7 m3/day (713.3 gallons/day) or 0.11 m3/hour (29.7 gallons/hour) -- and that is assuming the person is awake 24/7/365 -- or for a more realistic wake/sleep schedule of 16hrs/8hrs that comes to 0.17 m3/hour (44.6 gallons/hour) per person... Even for average family household that seems an EXTREMELY high volume of water use... I'm not trying to put you down, I'm just pointing it out to hopefully get it updated/fixed... Regardless, thanks for putting in the time & effort and sharing the video...! (Edit: Added daily & hourly water use volume numbers)
awesomely explained. :) I liked the part where the kinetic energy of the solute is transferred to the salt water molecules and hence reduces the energy consumption.
exactly what I put in comments a few weeks ago when California cried so hard about their lack of rain fall.. wanted to start to raise taxes and prices on water and force folks to use less.. I said then that I had never see a place with such a large coast line cry about water... you can take the salt out of sea water. As to this video.. you do not have to put brine back into ocean... it can go into wells in your desert areas and filter back naturaly through the ground like rain water does and not cause any harm by over salting some areas like they spoke of.
You forgot the large amount of energy required to power these desal plants. Most of the ones I know use fossil fuels. If they can be powered by renewable, they are great.
It's bullshit. It's the biggest problem that's all the salt water purification plant all made. Look it up, the salt concentration level was so high that the many local sea once full of life had become death sea
@@lustxglory because they are not just salt , other impurity are also in there : micro plastic , virus , wasted shit . You wound't want to use it knowing that
@@lesangpro If what you mention is correct, how do 'salines' - salt collecting operations - avoid having these undesirables in their produce - ie, should 'sea salt' come with a health warning? (Or is it the case that the 'extra' flavour comes from impurities in the same way that what makes whisky different from vodka is the presence of chemicals which, broadly, are bad for you?)
@@RobertSeviour1 I think it must be that the removal of certain elements concentrates the flavor of the remaining elements. Maybe little bits of mineral is necessary to produce authentic "sea salt."
Malta has used desalination since just after WWII, actually during WWII, when fresh water supply was bolstered by allied warships in harbour. Thy don't use it for drinking, but for washing, sanitation and farming.
Some US Navy warships have been utilizing the desalination method for many years. The Huntington beach California area would have been a great location for this type of much needed technology. It's amazing how some Californians protest the desalination plants but continue to build golf courses sucking the life from the earth by over harvesting all the stored underground drinking water. Chances of heavy rains in California is just not gonna happen so drastic measures of repopulation must begin immediately or harvest to sea water into drinking water. With 7 billion people in the world this is just a reality of the times in which humans live.
maybe it includes the water used to feed the animals and plants you eat... also the the products you use like TVs or other products you use on a daily basis
All these comments about this being impractical and so on... There are thousands of these facilities worldwide. This video was produced by a company who provides these plants to governments. In many countries/municipalities this is the main source of freshwater for people. It's a bit more expensive than treating freshwater, but water is so cheap to begin with that it's not that big of a deal.
@@Thedamped And how prevalent is it? If it's so cheap, why is there still water shortage in the richest counties in the state? It is a big deal because it is expensive. Otherwise, there wouldn't be all this bickering between Western states and talk about the coming water crisis.
@@ampa4989 According to the wiki there are 17 in the planning or construction phase and some completed. There is a sizable upfront investment but the longterm cost is not that high and has a lower environmental impact than depleting ground water. It takes time to make changes and especially when municipalities are the ones making the changes. Solar is also usually cheaper than fossil fuel for energy these days. Yet it is barely used in the US. These things take time to transition.
Deslination is useful for cities near the coast line, but not all cities are near the coastline. This is an expensive process and it also requires large deslination plants. This can be used to improve your water supply but the biproduct of this process is heavy salt content in water which is then dumped back into the Ocean. It is such a small amount when compared to the vast ocean but long term studies have no been done on how dumping this very salt heavy water has on the whole ocean.
Why not just boil the water and collect the steam in a separate container? Evaporation is a natural filter. The water vapor leaves behind all the bad shit and then condenses back into clean potable water. It sure as hell seems a lot less convoluted than the process described in the video.
the energy needed to boil the water .. be comes very very expensive .. imagine if you had to boil 100 gallons perday ( average american usage ) .. how much fuel would you use?..and that is just for you ..what about the 10000 people in your SMALL town ?
really?? how many of these exists?? how much can it boil?? have you ever tried to boil 100 gallons?? let alone 100000 ,, BTW ..boil 100 gallons os salt water does not net 100 gallons fresh water ...
actually it is..look at what it takes to do the reverse osmosis .. dont you think if you YOU are saying is the way to go would work that it would be done?? again .. you are NOT accounting for the energy expenditure to "boil " the water ...
So why isn't this being used all over the world? Because despite the "energy recapture device", it is still energy intensive, and the membranes are very expensive to make, are fragile, and have to be replaced.
