Title: Freezing–melting process and desalination: review of present status and future prospects

Authors: M. Shafiur Rahman, Mushtaque Ahmed, X. Dong Chen

Addresses: College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 34, Al Khod 123, Sultanate of Oman. ' College of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 34, Al Khod 123, Sultanate of Oman. ' Biotechnology and Food Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, Monash University, Building 36, Clayton Campus, VIC 3800, Australia

Abstract: The main factors affecting the use of freezing-melting (FM) process are the capital cost and the process complexity. The FM technology was successful when these two factors were compensated by other advantages. The success in food industry was mainly due to its ability of producing high-quality products compared to the available thermal technology in the market. In chemical industry it is generally adopted when there are no other alternatives. It would be difficult to utilise the above advantages to adopt FM process for desalination. Furthermore, misconceptions and negative attitudes also affected the progress of FM process. In desalination, a number of existing technologies are available. The pilot studies in several countries indicated that the hybrid techniques of combining FM process and other desalination methods have high potential for development. The strategies for the commercial success of the FM process in desalination industry are identified in this paper.

Keywords: desalination; freezing–melting process; direct contact freezing; indirect contact freezing; vacuum freezing; eutectic freezing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJND.2007.013549

International Journal of Nuclear Desalination, 2007 Vol.2 No.3, pp.253 - 264

Published online: 04 May 2007 *

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