What Does
Desalination Plant Mean?
A desalination plant is an industrial facility that uses chemical or physical processes to reduce or recover salt concentrations from water supplies intended for drinking or industrial purposes. Removing salt from the source water renders it fit for human consumption and reduces the occurrence of salt-induced corrosion of any metal in contact with the treated water.
Corrosionpedia Explains Desalination Plant
Desalination plants primarily make use of the one or more of the following processes for water treatment:
- Reverse osmosis
- Thermal multistage flash distillation
- Mechanical vapor compression
Desalination plants (DPs) have a high level of corrosion risk because they handle large quantities of concentrated saltwater. Plant operating conditions often include distillation, agitation and high salt water flow rates. The prolonged combination of these mechanisms accelerates the corrosion rate.
Brackish water and brine cause localized forms of corrosion such as pitting, crevice, galvanic and stress corrosion cracking. Desalination plants may attempt to reduce the corrosion rate by using copper-nickel alloys as a structural material to construct equipment. These alloys demonstrate superior corrosion resistance in aerated and deaerated seawater at various temperatures.