Treating seawater with selected chemicals before desalination could reduce biofouling and lengthen the lifespan of filtration membranes. Identifying the components of membrane antiscalants that cause biofouling could help make seawater desalination a more sustainable source of fresh water.
This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Graphical abstract. Credit: Water Research (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.watres.2023.119802 "Safe drinking water is a human right," says environmental scientist Graciela Gonzalez-Gil, "yet roughly 800 million people have no access." The United Nations estimates that demand for fresh water could exceed the natural water cycle supply by as much as 40% by 2030. "Seawater desalination—particularly by reverse osmosis (SWRO), which involves pressurizing seawater through a membrane at high pressure to remove salt and impurities—has become a widely adopted low-cost source of drinking water in arid coastal countries," says Gonzalez-Gil's colleague and KAUST alumni Ratul Das, who now works as Head of Desalination R&D for energy company ACWA Power, which has 16 water seawater desalination plants across four countries. However, SWRO is energy intensive, and the used membranes create a lot of waste. Seawater is typically pretreated with antiscalants to prevent the scaling of salt on the membranes. "The…