Water desalination price from recent performances: modelling, simulation and analysis

The subject of the present article is the technical simulation of seawater desalination, by a one stage reverse osmosis system, the objectives of which are the recent valuation of cost price through the use of new membrane and permeator performances, the use of new means of simulation and modelling of desalination parameters, and show the main parameters influencing the cost price. We have taken as the simulation example the Seawater Desalting centre of Djannet (Boumerdes, Algeria). The present performances allow water desalting at a price of 0.5 $/m 3 , which is an interesting and promising price, corresponding with the very acceptable water product quality, in the order of 269 ppm. It is important to run the desalting systems by reverse osmosis under high pressure, resulting in further decrease of the desalting cost and the production of good quality water. Aberration in choice of functioning conditions produces high prices and unacceptable quality. However there exists the possibility of decreasing the price by decreasing the requirement on the product quality. The seawater temperature has an effect on the cost price and quality. The installation of big desalting centres, contributes to the decrease in prices. A very important, long and tedious calculation is effected, which is impossible to conduct without programming and informatics tools. The use of the simulation model has been much efficient in the design of desalination centres that can perform at very improved prices.