Desalination Technology and Advancement

Water scarcity as an outcome of global population expansion, climate change and industrialization has called for new and innovative technologies to provide sustainable solutions to address the alarming issue. As seawater and brackish water are abundantly available on earth for drinking water and industrial use, desalination has been tapped as one of the promising approaches to resolve the global challenges. In the recent decade, the considerable reduction in desalination cost due to the technological development has further contributed to the growing of global desalination capacity. Currently, different desalination technologies have been deployed worldwide for clean water production. Broadly, the desalination technologies can be categorised into two main types which are membrane-based and thermal-based desalination. The technological advancement in this field has been focused on the reduction of capital and operating cost, particularly the energy consumption of the system. This contribution presents the comprehensive summary of various seawater and brackish desalination technologies as effective solutions to water shortages