DESALINATION PLANTS

Working:

• A desalination plant turns salt water into water that is fit to drink.
  
  
• The most commonly used technology used for the process is reverse osmosis where an external pressure is applied to push solvents from an area of high-solute concentration to an area of low-solute concentration through a membrane.
  
  
• The microscopic pores in the membranes allow water molecules through but leave salt and most other impurities behind, releasing clean water from the other side.
  
  

Challenges:

• Desalination is an expensive way of generating drinking water as it requires a high amount of energy.
  
  
• The other problem is the disposal of the by-product — highly concentrated brine — of the desalination process. While in most places brine is pumped back into the sea, there have been rising complaints that it ends up severely damaging the local ecology around the plant.