Iranian Journal of

Background and Objectives: Nowadays, most countries of the world have shortage of water due to many reasons such as population growth, rising of living standards, indiscriminate water use, and so on. Besides, in absence of adequate water resources, desalination of brackish and saline waters have been used to supply potable water. Freezing process is one of the methods which can be used to desalinate saline waters.The aim of this study was to survey freezing process to produce potable water from saline water of Persian Gulf shores.
Materials and Methods: This study was conducted in lab-scale by using indirect contact freezing. Three samples of 50 liter were provided from Bushehr shores. The implemented process steps were freezing (crystallization), separation of crystals, surface washing, and thawing. Freezing of the samples (each in 0.5 liter containers) were performed by a refrigerator at -20°C and 0.1KW/h energy consumption.
Results: The removal efficiencies of TDS in the first, second, and third samples by first freezing process were 56, 56, and 51 percent, respectively. Moreover, the removal efficiencies by EC were 42, 44, and 40 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, the removal efficiencies of TDS in first, second, and third samples by second freezing process observed 69, 69, and 68 percent, respectively. Moreover, the removal efficiencies by EC were 61, 60, and 63 percent, respectively. Also, the removal efficiencies of TDS in first, second, and third samples by third freezing process were 72, 73, and 72 percent, respectively. Moreover, the removal efficiencies by EC were 77, 78, and 77 percent, respectively. The production of the potable water by this method was 15-20 percent of the entry water.
Conclusions: According to the obtained results, potable water was obtained after third freezing of the saline water. Meanwhile, TDS of the produced water was less than maximum allowed concentration of Iranian standards.