Desalination technology selection using multi-criteria evaluation: TOPSIS and PROMETHEE-2

Abstract

In this paper, the need of multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) for a desalination technology selection is emphasized through a case study. Decision context, problem formulation and the relative importance of 11 complete, operational and non-redundant criteria were established which represented the behavior of the MCE problem. TOPSIS and PROMETHEE-2 methods were identified as the appropriate MCE techniques and the five alternatives were evaluated using these methods separately. The respective results indicated that ED was the most applicable technology for the selected community and ranked the usage of electrodialysis, reverse osmosis, vapor compression, multiple effect distillation and multi-stage flash in the decreasing order of priority.