New and innovative sea water intake system for the desalination plant at San Pedro del Pinatar

doi:10.1016/j.desal.2006.01.036

Desalination

Volume 203, Issues 1–3, 5 February 2007, Pages 199-217

Presented at EuroMed 2006 conference on Desalination Strategies in South Mediterranean Countries: Cooperation between Mediterranean Countries of Europe and the Southern Rim of the Mediterranean. Sponsored by the European Desalination Society and the University of Montpellier II, Montpellier, France, 21-25 May 2006

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.desal.2006.01.036 Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper deals with a new sea water intake system which can be used in large desalination plants as it presents numerous advantages over vertical costal wells.

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Cited by (21)

Discharge performance of a submerged seawater intake in unsteady flows: Combination of physical models and decision tree algorithms
2024, Journal of Water Process Engineering
Developing impressive and cost-effective desalination technologies is crucial for addressing the increasing global demand for freshwater. In this regard, along with the process type and technology of desalination, the system's efficiency relies on the availability of a sufficient, constant, uniform, and high-quality discharge flow from the seawater intake structure. This investigation concerns the discharge flow performance of velocity caps, which serve as submerged seawater intake structures, in unsteady flows using physical models and decision tree algorithms. The observations indicate that the square caps are more prone to instability compared to the circular caps when exposed to waves. Additionally, circular caps can increase efficiency by about 12 % compared to square caps. Therefore, the circular velocity cap is more optimal than the square one. Results show that increasing wave height and period decreases the discharge through the intake due to increased interaction between wave and intake structure. Also, wave steepness leaves a significant reverse effect on seawater intake of about 40 %. The study also found that the optimal relative bottom height (w/h) is 1 for high flow depths and 0.5 for low flow depths, respectively. Finally, practical equations of discharge coefficients have been proposed based on decision tree algorithms with high accuracy. These high-accuracy equations show great potential for designing new desalination systems and optimizing existing ones.
Study on field applicability of a cleaning machine for marine growth removal in seawater pipelines
2023, Desalination
In a seawater intake facility, the proliferation and inflow of marine life impede the flow of seawater, thereby hindering the normal operation of offshore plants. To address this issue, it is necessary to use appropriate device for cleaning the fouled intake pipe, and particularly devices that are suited to dealing with polymer pipes over 2000 mm in diameter. This study aimed to improve the field applicability of a winch jig cleaning device designed for deep seawater pipes for which existing commercial devices and services were not economically feasible. The forward movement and rotation of brushes effectively remove attached marine life without causing damage to the pipe material and recover the water level of the intake structure from the trip level of 4600 mm to design level of 6000 mm in intake tank. 3D modeling using SolidWorks was used to assess the load distribution within the device and allowed for the calculation of individual loads on device elements based on their physical properties, thus resulting in the determination of the total load of 1450 kg in a manner similar to field weight measurements. The potential fatigue load relief in the brush body installation section on the shaft was calculated to be the maximum stress of 5.979e-03 N/mm² ·MPa, that was lower than the maximum stress of 2.390e+01 N/mm² ·MPa and the yield stress of 2.05e+02 N/mm² ·MPa. It was achieved by reducing the weight of brushes and brush frames. The installation of brushes and brush frames resulted in maximum stress becoming concentrated, but the stress levels decreased after installation of the floater due to its effective load-lightening capability.
Environmental impact of desalination processes: Mitigation and control strategies
2020, Science of the Total Environment
Citation Excerpt :
Plant intake and outfall have critical EIs as it has direct contact with the marine environment. The main EIs associated with plant open sea intake are entrainment, impingement, and entrapment or EI&E, which results in the loss of diversity and of abundance aquatic organisms at the intake's local marine environment (Farinas and Luis, 2007). Entrainment is simply the passage of small organisms, smaller than intake screen size, with limited or no swimming abilities, by the flow of feedwater into the plant, hence removing it from its natural habitat.
Freshwater supplies are in shortage relative to the high demand for different human activities, making desalination of saline water a must. Desalination to extract water from saline water has been well established as a reliable non-conventional water supply. However, desalination as any human-based process has resulted in many impacts on the environment. Brine loaded with chemicals being discharged back to the environment, along with greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions being released to the atmosphere, are the most significant impacts, which has been extensively studied, with some efforts given to its mitigation and control.
The current work discusses the mitigation and control strategies (M&CS) to the different environmental impacts (EIs) of desalination processes. The article compiles the M&CS in one work, instead of the distributed and separate treatment of the EIs of each desalination step and its respective M&CS as currently present in literature. The article tracks the water flow in an intake-to-outfall approach exploring how to minimize the impacts at each step and as a whole process. This starts from intake, pretreatment processes, desalination technology, and finally, brine discharge. The EIs associated with each desalination process element is thoroughly discussed with proposed M&CS. The work shows clearly that many EIs can be eliminated or minimized by incorporating specific design criteria and process improvements. The feedwater source has shown to have a great effect on EIs. Similarly, desalination technology has shown a considerable effect on the EIs related to brine characteristics and energy consumption. Hybrid and emerging desalination systems have shown reduced EIs relative to conventional thermal and membrane desalination technologies, while the utilization of renewable and waste energy sources has shown a significant reduction in EIs related to energy consumption.
Usefulness of the Cl/Br ratio to identify the effect of reverse osmosis treated waters on groundwater systems
2019, Desalination
Citation Excerpt :
Some human-induced actions may contribute to the original ‘climatic’ groundwater salinity, such as pumping inducing seawater intrusion and mobilisation of brines [3,17], high-efficiency irrigation systems producing high-salinity, low irrigation return rates [6,18,19], and misuse of fertilizers and agrochemicals, among others. In many densely-populated and irrigated drylands, the use of non-conventional resources such as wastewater reuse and seawater desalination to cope with water quality requirements has been encouraged [20–22]. In many sparse drylands, desalination of brackish groundwater has become a recurrent option for freshwater supply [5,23–25].
The chloride-to-bromide molar ratio (R ≡ Cl/Br) is widely used in tracing groundwater salinity. Less experience exists on how some industrial processes such as the reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment modify the R value of desalinated water (P) and reject brine (T), and even less on how distinctive for hydrogeological applications the R changes are. This paper assesses the Cl/Br ratio usefulness to identify the effect of P and T on groundwater systems. First, the experimental R changes produced in P and T during standard RO operations and treatments of raw (I) seawater, brackish groundwater, and tertiary-treated domestic wastewater in nine RO plants (three in Gran Canaria Island and six in south-eastern continental Spain) were determined by means of the X_P = R_P/R_I (R change in P) and X_T = R_T/R_I (R change in T) ratios. X_P and X_T were respectively 0.90 and 1.07 for treatment 1 (weak pre-acidification) in one RO plant, 0.82 ± 0.09 and 0.94 ± 0.05 for treatment 2 (weak pre-acidification and weak pre-chlorination) in five RO plants, 0.63 and 0.97 for treatment 3 (moderate pre-acidification and strong pre-chlorination) in one RO plant, and 3.21 ± 2.02 and 1.00 ± 0.00 for treatment 4 (post-chlorination) in two RO plants. P was for irrigation (treatments 1 to 3) and for domestic use (treatment 4). Latter, the experimental X_P and X_T ratios were input data for six theoretical mixing scenarios aimed at showing how groundwater R changes in response to progressive contributions of P and T produced from different I water. The Cl/Br ratio enables to identify the effect of P from treatments 3 and 4, is scarcely effective for treatments 1 and 2, and is especially useful when P produced from seawater is used in other aquifer having different R. The Cl/Br ratio did not clearly identify T from any treatment.
Environmental issues in seawater reverse osmosis desalination: Intakes and outfalls
2018, Desalination
Citation Excerpt :
Horizontal wells or drains are installed under the seabed using micro-tunneling. A large number of these wells can be installed from a single pad site located off of the beach [78,79] (Fig. 5). Of all of the well systems, horizontal wells have potentially the fewest environmental impacts.
Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination has some environmental impacts associated with the construction and operation of intake systems and the disposal of concentrate. The primary impact of conventional open-ocean intake systems is the impingement and entrainment of marine organisms. These impacts can be minimized by locating the intake in a geographic position where oceanic productivity is low. Velocity-cap intakes tend to reduce impacts by minimizing the number of fish entrained and some new traveling screens can allow the survival of some marine organisms. Mitigation, such as environmental restoration of habitat or restocking, can provide an acceptable solution to impacts where they are significant. Subsurface intake systems avoid impingement and entrainment impacts, but can cause other, less important impacts (e.g., visual, beach access). Concentrate disposal can locally impact benthic communities, if poorly diluted discharge is allowed to flow across the marine bottom. Impacts to benthic communities from concentrate discharges can be minimized by using properly-designed diffuser systems, designed and located based current and flow modeling.
The experiences of SWRO desalination to date indicate that environmental impacts can be satisfactorily minimized with proper design based on a reasonably complete environmental impact analysis prior to facility siting and design.
Design and Construction of Subsurface Intakes
2018, Sustainable Desalination Handbook: Plant Selection, Design and Implementation
Seawater desalination is a viable alternative for diversifying a water supply portfolio and has been made even more attractive through cost-effective and efficient subsurface feedwater supply systems and water treatment technologies. Properly designed subsurface intake systems reduce or completely eliminate pretreatment requirements for particulate matter—thus diminishing impacts to the ocean environment from entrainment or impingement of marine life. The number of subsurface intakes throughout the world is relatively small compared to open ocean intakes. This is largely due to capacity differences between the two types. Subsurface intakes average approximately 12 mgd per facility, as compared to approximately 52 mgd per facility for open ocean intakes. However, subsurface feedwater supply systems near and beneath the ocean floor utilize the natural properties of permeable subsea aquifer sediments to filter out organic matter and suspended sediment rather than rely on expensive pretreatment systems. This results in a significant cost savings to the seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plant in the form of reduction in capital expenditure for construction, operation, and maintenance of a pretreatment system. Research over the past 11 years has shown that total yield is a function of scale and field tests show that properly designed and constructed slant wells with engineered artificial filter packs allow production of marine groundwater with low turbidity and silt density indexes less than one. Most importantly, subsurface intakes are quickly becoming the favored feedwater supply method due to the reduced environmental impacts they offer. They are even recommended in the State of California’s Water Quality Control Plan for Ocean Waters of California. As a result, subsurface intakes can be much easier to get permitted for SWRO desalination plants as compared to open ocean intakes.

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