Seawater reverse osmosis Saudi Arabia

Desert countries like Saudi Arabia have built reverse osmosis plants to produce fresh water from seawater. Assume that seawater has the composition 0.470 M NaCl and 0.068 M MgCl2 and that both compounds are completely dissociated. 

Figure 26-11 shows how seawater can be desalinated under pressure by reverse osmosis. The largest desalination plant in the world is located in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, where it produces 50% of the country s drinking water by the reverse osmosis of seawater from the Persian Gulf. Smaller desalination plants are in operation in Israel, California, and Rorida. 

The PA-300 membrane was the first composite reverse osmosis membrane to be used successfully in a major seawater desalination facility-the 3.2 MGD plant at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.35 Much of the original membrane in this plant, as well as replacement membrane, is believed to be RC-100 (the TDI-based analog) because of its greater stability and retention of salt rejection. The Jeddah plant was truly a pioneer installation for spiral-wound composite membranes. Even though it was attended by a variety of start-up and operating problems, mostly unrelated to the membranes,36 it continues to operate successfully at this date. 

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