Combating brine disposal under various scenario

One of the most, but yet fully untapped potential areas of disposal from a technical and environmental angle is brine reject. Most of the RO plants can make best use of either 1st stage or 2nd stage brine depending on its end-use and the inter-stage salinity thereof. While dealing with disposal scenario some of the pertinent alternatives are energy saving, footprint area available, statutory regulations, recovery. Extraction of salts by solar evaporation is widely practiced in arid climates for the recovery of calcium, magnesium, barium and strontium salts, environmentally.

The recovery of valuable chemicals by evaporation, solar and thermal, is viewed in greater perspective and is site dependent. The current practice of blending and increasing the feed TDS aggravates fouling and scaling along with specific energy cost. The regional and socioeconomic issues are to be deeply considered and energy recovery, more than disposal, is of prime concern. Membrane elements of all makes that can stand up to the extremes in reject stream chemistry, are to be explored, so as to increase the overall recovery, thereby achieving costsaving.