Freeze desalination: An assessment of an ice maker machine for desalting brines

Ice maker machines are extensively used in many commercial and residential areas for the purpose of making ice cubes. As the ice forms a certain amount of dissolved salts will be rejected to the remaining residual liquid. However, the degree of separation by freezing, in terms of the salt rejection and water recovery, is dictated by several factors and influences, such as operating conditions and feed quality. In this paper, the potential of an ice maker is investigated for desalting several types of process feed including sodium chloride solutions, Arabian Gulf seawater and reverse osmosis brines. The performance of multi-staging the freeze concentration process was also experimentally assessed. The results show that the process was useful in concentrating reverse osmosis brine and producing a recycle stream for further processing by membrane plant. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.