Desalination

Potable water is one of the most valuable ressources we have on our earth. The "blue gold" is essential for any life. Potable water ressources are limited and water scarcity is a big challenge in many parts of the world already today and will become even more urgent in the future. Water desalination is one of the main technological answers to this challenge. Today, 80 Million Cubicmeter per day of Desalination Capacity is installed worldwide, showing exponential growth. This lecture wants to provide students with both basic theoretical and practical tools to be able to cope with engineering solutions to overcome the future lack of potable water. The focus will be on the thermodynamic and chemical properties of seawater, the wide range of different desalination technologies with a major on distillation and membrane processes, renewable energy and transient power supply in desalination, large and small scale applications and finally also on desalination-driven environmental aspects.

Having successfully passed the Desalination lecture the young engineers are able to understand, design and optimize desalination plants on their own. Furthermore they are sensitized for future technological challenges in desalination e.g. transient power supply for membrane processes. A deep understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of different desalination priciples empower them not only to make viable decisions during plant design and construction but also to use their knowlegde to further develop existing ideas. The students are prepared for solving engineering problems about potable water issues with a strong focus on desalination.

Physics, Thermodynamics and Heat and Mass Transfer.

In the lecture, the subject matter is explained in an oral presentation. The exercises include both presentation and experimental investigations of the students themselves. The excerises put the main focus on deepening the understanding of the therotical aspects taught in the lecture. Difficulties will be explained in detail and problems of understanding will be solved. The exercises are not obligatory but highly recommended also in view of the exam.

Oral presentations, Tablet-PC support, lab-scale desalination plants (solar stills) in laboratory courses, excercises as preperation for the final exam.

Lecture notes and transkript incl. references.

The theoretical knowlegde gained in the lecture is to be practically applied in exercise lessons by means of case studies. The exercises course also includes a laboratory course in which students carry out experiments with lab-scale desalination plants.