Week 38 Desalination: water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink

Seawater - Photo Credit - Pexels & Free Images - Pixabay

Welcome to the thirty-eighth edition of my weekly blog where I take a closer look at the policies adopted by individual countries in their efforts to meet the requirements of the Paris Agreement. Particular attention is paid to the role that Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (CCUS) research and technologies are playing in the drive to meet these requirements.

Introduction
This week I take a look at how advances in carbon capture and utilization technologies are being exploited to remove brine from wastewater. Brine is a high concentration of salt in water. Brine is also a by-product of industrial processes and brine wastewater can be hazardous to the environment.

Brine Wastewater and Desalination
Brine, for all intents and purposes, is more commonly known as salt. Brine wastewater is found in the food industry, using salt to treat meat. It is most commonly found in heavy industries such as oil and gas where brine water is used as a coolant. Brine water can become contaminated during the production process and must be treated before the water is released back into the environment.
Desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance such as sea water or soil. CO2 is mixed with salt water at high pressure and temperature in order to form hydrates that are removed leaving clean water behind.

Condorchem Envitech
Condorchem Envitech is an environmental engineering company founded in Barcelona, Spain with over 25 years’ experience, providing primary water, wastewater, and air emissions treatment solutions to its clients around the world.
Condorchem Envitech has developed three types of technology that assists with the desalination process:

1. Membrane Filtration – a filtration process where the filtered water and brine are separated into two flows
2. Vacuum Evaporators – most common filtration process where high concentrations of brine are evaporated out of the water
3. Crystallizers – usually a final stage where the brine waste is dried out

COSIA (Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance)
COSIA is an alliance of oil sands producers and is focused on improving the process of extracting oil and gas from the oil sands as efficiently and eco-friendly as possible. One of their aspirations is to “be world leaders in water management, producing Canadian energy with no adverse impact on water”.
COSIA has two key performance goals for ‘In Situ’ and mining operators towards reaching its water management goal:

1. In Situ – reduce freshwater use intensity by 50% by 2022
2. Mining operators – reduce the net water use intensity from the Athabasca River and its tributaries by 30% by 2022.

Approximately 90% of water used “in Situ’ and 80% of water used in oil sands mining operations is recycled.

Summary
Good water management starts with the conservation of water through the implementation of policies devised by governments and industry bodies such as COSIA. This will be crucial towards ensuring that water usage levels are sensibly managed and monitored into the future.
Where water is an important, and unavoidable ingredient in the food and energy sectors, technological innovations by companies such as Condorchem Envitech will help remove brine from the wastewater, safely dispose of any contaminated particles, and only allow filtered water back into the environment.

Next week’s blog will profile Norway and their efforts to meet their CO2 emissions reduction targets.

​If you liked this article you might enjoy reading some recent articles in the series:
Week 37 Switzerland: powering cars with carbon negative biofuel
Week 36 Croatia: using enhanced oil recovery to move towards a cleaner economy
Week 35 Urea: using carbon to boost crop yield