Development of mobile stand-alone solar-driven reverse osmosis groundwater/seawater desalination plants for sustainable development in Egypt

Abstract

Egypt is experiencing a fresh water crisis. Many large and small communities in Egypt are suf-fering an acute shortage of fresh water that complies with minimum health requirements. Water desalination projects based on reverse osmosis (RO) technology are being introduced in Egypt to combat drinking water shortage in remote areas. RO desalination is a pressure-driven process. This work focuses on the design of an integrated brackish water and seawater RO desalination and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. Two small mobile PV-driven RO desalination plants prototypes were designed, deployed and applied into two areas in Egypt. Solar-driven RO desalination can potentially break the dependence of conventional desalination on fossil fuels, reduce operational costs, and improve environmental sustainability. Moreover, the innovative features incorporated in the newly designed PV-RO plant prototype are focusing on improving the cost effectiveness of produc-ing drinkable water in remote areas. This is achieved by maximizing energy yield through an integrated automatic single axis PV tracking system with programmed tilting angle adjustment. Mobility of the systems provides potable water to isolated villages and population as well as ability to provide good drinking water to different number of people from any source that is not drinkable. In the first project, a mobile battery-less photovoltaic powered groundwater reverse-osmosis (MSRO) desalinating unit was designed, manufactured and deployed in the Northwest coast of Egypt. This unit is capable of desalinating the brackish and saline groundwater as well as it was considered to produce 11 m3/d of drinkable water for the Bedouins community. The second project focuses on designing, building and field-tested of an integrated mobile saline groundwater and seawater RO desalination and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. The system was designed to produce 21 m3/d of fresh water in Shalateen area, Southeast coast of Egypt.