Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets
This paper uses chemical and physical data from a large 2017 U.S. Geological Survey groundwater dataset with wells in the U.S. and three smaller international groundwater datasets with wells primarily in Australia and Spain to carry out a comprehensive investigation of brackish groundwater compositi...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116025 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4583-1057 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2901-0638 |
| _version_ | 1826212149897199616 |
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| author | Böhlke, J.K. Stanton, Jennifer Ahdab, Yvana Daniella Thiel, Gregory P. Lienhard, John H |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Böhlke, J.K. Stanton, Jennifer Ahdab, Yvana Daniella Thiel, Gregory P. Lienhard, John H |
| author_sort | Böhlke, J.K. |
| collection | MIT |
| description | This paper uses chemical and physical data from a large 2017 U.S. Geological Survey groundwater dataset with wells in the U.S. and three smaller international groundwater datasets with wells primarily in Australia and Spain to carry out a comprehensive investigation of brackish groundwater composition in relation to minimum desalination energy costs. First, we compute the site-specific least work required for groundwater desalination. Least work of separation represents a baseline for specific energy consumption of desalination systems. We develop simplified equations based on the U.S. data for least work as a function of water recovery ratio and a proxy variable for composition, either total dissolved solids, specific conductance, molality or ionic strength. We show that the U.S. correlations for total dissolved solids and molality may be applied to the international datasets. We find that total molality can be used to calculate the least work of dilute solutions with very high accuracy. Then, we examine the effects of groundwater solute composition on minimum energy requirements, showing that separation requirements increase from calcium to sodium for cations and from sulfate to bicarbonate to chloride for anions, for any given TDS concentration. We study the geographic distribution of least work, total dissolved solids, and major ions concentration across the U.S. We determine areas with both low least work and high water stress in order to highlight regions holding potential for desalination to decrease the disparity between high water demand and low water supply. Finally, we discuss the implications of the USGS results on water resource planning, by comparing least work to the specific energy consumption of brackish water reverse osmosis plants and showing the scaling propensity of major electrolytes and silica in the U.S. groundwater samples. Keywords: Desalination; Brackish groundwater composition; Least work of separation; Energy requirements; Saturation index |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:17:09Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/116025 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:17:09Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1160252022-10-02T01:57:03Z Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets Böhlke, J.K. Stanton, Jennifer Ahdab, Yvana Daniella Thiel, Gregory P. Lienhard, John H Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Rohsenow Kendall Heat Transfer Laboratory (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Ahdab, Yvana Daniella Thiel, Gregory P. Lienhard, John H. This paper uses chemical and physical data from a large 2017 U.S. Geological Survey groundwater dataset with wells in the U.S. and three smaller international groundwater datasets with wells primarily in Australia and Spain to carry out a comprehensive investigation of brackish groundwater composition in relation to minimum desalination energy costs. First, we compute the site-specific least work required for groundwater desalination. Least work of separation represents a baseline for specific energy consumption of desalination systems. We develop simplified equations based on the U.S. data for least work as a function of water recovery ratio and a proxy variable for composition, either total dissolved solids, specific conductance, molality or ionic strength. We show that the U.S. correlations for total dissolved solids and molality may be applied to the international datasets. We find that total molality can be used to calculate the least work of dilute solutions with very high accuracy. Then, we examine the effects of groundwater solute composition on minimum energy requirements, showing that separation requirements increase from calcium to sodium for cations and from sulfate to bicarbonate to chloride for anions, for any given TDS concentration. We study the geographic distribution of least work, total dissolved solids, and major ions concentration across the U.S. We determine areas with both low least work and high water stress in order to highlight regions holding potential for desalination to decrease the disparity between high water demand and low water supply. Finally, we discuss the implications of the USGS results on water resource planning, by comparing least work to the specific energy consumption of brackish water reverse osmosis plants and showing the scaling propensity of major electrolytes and silica in the U.S. groundwater samples. Keywords: Desalination; Brackish groundwater composition; Least work of separation; Energy requirements; Saturation index 2018-05-31T17:37:41Z 2018-05-31T17:37:41Z 2018-04 2018-03 2018-05-31T13:04:06Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 0043-1354 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116025 Ahdab, Yvana D., Gregory P. Thiel, J.K. Böhlke, Jennifer Stanton, and John H. Lienhard. “Minimum Energy Requirements for Desalination of Brackish Groundwater in the United States with Comparison to International Datasets.” Water Research 141 (September 2018): 387–404 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4583-1057 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2901-0638 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2018.04.015 Water Research Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ application/pdf Elsevier Prof. Lienhard |
| spellingShingle | Böhlke, J.K. Stanton, Jennifer Ahdab, Yvana Daniella Thiel, Gregory P. Lienhard, John H Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title | Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title_full | Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title_fullStr | Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title_full_unstemmed | Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title_short | Minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the United States with comparison to international datasets |
| title_sort | minimum energy requirements for desalination of brackish groundwater in the united states with comparison to international datasets |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116025 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4583-1057 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2901-0638 |
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