Environmental and Energy Issues in Water Treatment Processes

Rephael Semiat, The Wolfson Chemical Engineering Department, Rabin Desalination Laboratory,Technion, Haifa, Israel


The challenges in water management are among the most important problems facing the world today. The shortage of clean water is at the heart of critical health issues in developing countries and is the focus of ecological and safety concerns even for the highly developed nations. To provide water for drinking and agriculture, we must desalinate and clean natural water sources, reclaim polluted water, purify water with different degrees of contaminants and improve the effectiveness of water handling (storage and delivery) systems ranging from large desalination plants to waste water treatment facilities and down to family’s water purification systems. We must remove contaminants that include inorganics (metals and ions), organics (e.g. toxic waste, pharmaceuticals) and microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.). At the heart of these diverse problems stands the need for new ways to clean water, to safely dispose of the extracted waste, to properly reuse the cleaning systems and to keep the environment clean.

Israel made significant steps to provide affordable solutions, based on wide distribution system, desalination (80% of the urban water consumption), Tertiary treatment of wastewater for irrigation, drip irrigation for reduction of water consumption and improved agriculture techniques. However, there is always place for improvements. It is essential to improve desalination steps in order to reduce the cost. New directions may include improved membranes, especially UF membranes, improve pretreatment processes, increased recoveries as apply effective near zero liquid discharge in inland brackish water desalination. It is essential to improve wastewater treatment by better techniques like MBR and better treatment for removal of tracers of organic and inorganic contaminants. An important subject is the treatment of produced water from the gas and oil industry, treatment of polluted aquifers, develop small water treatment and recovery for remote communities, and more. The aspects related to techniques, energy and environmental issues investigated in our water research program would be discussed.