Small-scale desalination plants in Korea: Technical challenges

Desalination is now being proposed for many countries facing water scarcity as a supplement to existing water supplies. In Korea, however, desalination for domestic water usage was restricted to small isolated communities with access to no other water supply. To date, small-scale RO (reverse osmosis) desalination systems, which size ranges from 10 m3/day to 1000 m3/day, have been constructed to produce potable water from brackish or seawater. The major issue of these systems is the optimization of system design to minimize capital cost and energy consumption, which is likely to be difficult for small-scale systems. This paper reviews the current status and future challenges of small-scale desalination plants in Korea. The design and operation of existing desalination systems were compared in terms of treatment efficiency and energy usage.