Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
1–10 of 59 posts
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#2Why would they chlorinate the water before desalination? And where does the copper come from?
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#3Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#4Imagine what the extraterrestrial anthropologists will say about humans someday...
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#5Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?
The article said the brine has chlorine and copper (added, and remaining).
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#6Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?
Even if it's just extra salty it's still a local problem. You can't just dump it all in the ocean because it would still kill everything. You'd need to dump it out slowly or over a much wider area for the concentration not to be harmful. It's like a polluted river killing everything where it dumps out even if the amount of pollution is inconsequential overall.
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#7Why would they chlorinate the water before desalination? And where does the copper come from?
Apparently it's for prevention of fouling:
> Combined low concentrations of copper (5 μg/l and chlorine (50,μg/l have been effective in preventing both micro and macro-fouling in over 120 seawater installations since 1987.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/242186534_FOULING_P...
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#8Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?
The article said the brine has chlorine and copper (added, and remaining).
It says 'about 1.5 liters of liquid polluted with chlorine and copper are created', but doesn't explain if these are additives or some kind of byproduct.
Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#9Re: Saudi Thirst for Water Is Creating a Toxic Brine Problem
#10Unless they are adding chemicals to the water before desalination (which I don't see mentioned anywhere), that sounds like the 'brine' is just ~1.5x concentrated seawater, which will get diluted back again? What am I missing?
It's from anti-fouling and general corrosion. Not sure what makes these plants special though since a population's regular water supply infrastructure would end up producing the same type of waste from pumps and what not.