Worldwide research trends on desalination

It is a fact that the world's population has increased twofold in the last 50 years, which has meant that the availability of freshwater for all required activities, industrial use, agriculture, and domestic use, has become increasingly scarce. In addition to these factors, 40% of the world's population lives less than 100 km from the coast. All these factors make desalination a key factor for the sustainability of the world's population. In this study, a bibliometric study has been carried out on all publications related to desalination. An exponential growth has been detected since 2008. The top 4 categories are environmental sciences (28%), engineering (27%), chemical engineering (11%), and chemistry (10%). The top 3 most productive in this scientific field have been China, USA, and India. Within the top 20 institutions, 8 are from China and 4 from Saudi Arabia, the top 3 being Ministry of Education China, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Regarding international collaboration, US authors stand out, noting that there are many different groups that collaborate with many authors from different countries and are therefore at the core of international collaboration. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On the other hand, the institutions with the highest scientific production tend to collaborate little with the rest of the institutions in their own country. The analysis of the evolution of the top 10 keywords shows that the top keywords were: from 2000 to 2001 reverse osmosis, 2002 membranes, from 2003 to 2007 sea water, from 2008 to 2014 water filtration, and from 2015 to 2020 membranes. An analysis of the scientific communities in which these works are grouped, and which represent the world trends in research in this field has found: Reverse osmosis (27%), Renewable energy desalination (26%), Thermal desalination (14%), Brine (13%), Electrodialysis (8%), Membrane distillation (7%), and less than 2% Microbial desalination and Freeze desalination.

Automated summary

The world's population growth, scarcity of freshwater resources, and proximity of 40% of the population to coastal areas have made desalination a key factor for sustaining the world population. The study found that China, the USA, and India are the most productive countries in desalination research, with US scientists playing a prominent role in international collaboration.