Water is no doubt one of the most important chemical compounds for mankind's life on Earth, second to oxygen, and the importance of proper handling and managing of water resources was established already by the Roman Empire.
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Fresch water production - a natural application for stainless steel
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With the world´s population rising sharply, we´re experiencing a potentially dangerous depletion of the global fresh water supply. There are numerous strategies to address this problem, ranging from far-fetched to plausible. One common method is desalination. After all, there´s a shortage of fresh water, not salt water.
Desalted water in large quantities can be provided by either evaporation and condensation or filtering through membranes. There are two types of evaporation processes commonly used, MSF (multi stage flash) and MED (multi effect desalination) while the dominating filtering process is RO (reverse osmosis), the latter can be either BWRO (brackish water RO) or SWRO (seawater RO). |
"Stainless steels are quite close to ideal materials for desalination plant construction" was stated in 1993 by Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) (Malik et al, IDA and WRPC world conference on desalination and water treatment, Yokohama).
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Such a statement is no surprise to the stainless steel industry considering the corrosion resistance and mechanical properties of stainless steel and its availability and possibility to fabricate into different products. |