Dwindling Global Freshwater Sources Drives Focus on Desalination as a Viable Antidote to the Looming Water Crisis
Dwindling availability of freshwater supplies, increased salinity of ground water, and development of innovative energy efficient desalination technologies are poised to drive the global market for Desalination Technologies to exceed US$36.8 billion by 2024.
Desalination can be defined as the process of converting saline unusable water into fresh usable one, through extraction and removal of dissolved salts from available water sources in order to make it viable for human use. Commercial interest in water desalination is supported by growing awareness about the need to address impending usable water crisis; increasing focus on making well informed water management decisions regarding conservation, use, allocation; and growing interest in developing technologies which provide fresh water to humans in regions where fresh water availability is dwindling.
Brackish groundwater desalination is growing in popularity among inland communities largely as a result of the substantially lower cost of treating groundwater, which is less salty and thus requires lower energy and less complex desalination facilities. Increased salinity of ground water and surface as a result of over exploitation and over-pumping of water is driving demand for desalination technologies. Traditionally sea water desalination has been essentially dependent upon thermal processes such as multi-stage flash (MSF) and multi-effect distillation (MED) for desalinating water. However, with most of the world, vying for limited energy resources coupled with persistent escalation in energy costs, alternative membrane based desalination technologies like Reverse Osmosis (RO) has been increasingly gaining attention. Driven by growing environmental concerns over excess use of fossil fuels, and constant escalation in crude oil prices, renewable energy based desalination including solar desalination, hybrid desalination is gaining in popularity.
Ongoing innovations in desalination technology are aimed at reducing specific energy consumption, desalination more sustainable and affordable. As energy consumption accounts for about half of the total cost of seawater desalination, improving energy efficiency is an important area of research. Advancements in RO technology are aimed at reducing energy consumption and maximizing flux, and minimizing scaling and fouling. Some of the advanced technologies include new methods of pre-treatment, thin-film nanocomposite membranes, captive deionisation, and forward osmosis. In the brackish water desalination space, focus is presently on minimizing brine and increasing recovery of freshwater, mainly due to the environmental issues and high cost incurred in brine disposal.
As stated by the new market research report on Desalination Technologies, the Middle-East represents the largest market worldwide. The region provides an attractive opportunity for water desalination owing to the short supply of water as a resource. Several large-scale investments are underway along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, and other markets including Oman, Abu Dhabi, UAE, and Kuwait to meet the rising demand for consumable water. Asia-Pacific represents another high growth market over the analysis period led by growing severity of water shortage in the region amid an expanding population and increasing urbanization and industrialization trend.
Major players in the market include Abengoa SA, ACCIONA SA, Aqualyng AS, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. Ltd., Dow Water & Process Solutions, Danfoss A/S, Evoqua Water Technologies LLC., FISIA ITALIMPIANTI S.p.A, Hyflux Limited, H2O Innovation, IDE Technologies Ltd., John Holland, Koch Membrane Systems Inc., Suez Environment, Tianjin MOTIMO Membrane Technology Co. Ltd., Toray Industries Inc., Toyobo Co. Ltd., Veolia Water Solutions & Technologies SA among others.
The research report titled “Desalination Technologies - Market Analysis, Trends, and Forecasts”, announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of market trends, issues, drivers, mergers, acquisitions and other strategic industry activities. The report provides market estimates and projections in US dollars for all major geographic markets including the United States, Canada, Japan, Europe (France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, Russia and Rest of Europe) , Asia-Pacific (Australia, China, India and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Middle-East, Latin-America (Brazil, Mexico and Rest of Latin-America). Key technology segments analyzed in the report include Multi-Stage Flash (MSF), Multi-Effect Distillation (MED), Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Others.
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