Rubber Expansion Joints for Desalination Plants

The need for additional supplies of freshwater and the scarcity of freshwater resources are already critical in many dry regions. Many arid areas of the planet do not have enough freshwater resources and they may only have very limited groundwater reserves. The evaporation of sea water by the action of the sun is used by nature to produce rain, which is the main source of fresh water on earth.

Desalinated water users are mainly the Middle East countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain), which uses around 70% of the global capacity and in North Africa (mainly Libya and Algeria) around 6% of world capacity is used. Some industrialized countries like the United States are also important users of desalinated water, especially in California and parts of Florida.

Desalination technologies fall into two categories: membrane-based and thermal evaporation-based. In recent years, seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO), the most prevalent membrane-based technology, has become the preferred desalination technique worldwide due to its lower energy consumption and cost of water production.