DesalData Weekly - September 23rd, 2015

Posted 23 September, 2015 by Mandy

In the water-starved city of Chennai, India, the Tamil Nadu state government is setting up a third desalination plant.  Located in Nemelli, the plant will use reverse osmosis to produce 150 million litres of water a day—contributing to Chennai Metrowater’s current distribution of 550 million litres of water to the region on alternate days [1] The German development bank, KfW, is financing the plant’s construction, and a team from the bank will soon visit Chennai to finalize details.  It is expected that the project will take 30 months to complete after the construction contract has been awarded.

In Horizon City, Texas, STW Resources has completed improvements on the Horizon City Municipal Utility District plant.  The facility, which now uses a reverse osmosis concentrator...

Credit: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images 

[1] In Horizon City, Texas, STW Resources has completed improvements on the Horizon City Municipal Utility District plant.  The facility, which now uses a reverse osmosis concentrator, is an upgrade of the 13-year-old plant, which produced 26,500 – 34,070 cubic metres per day (as well as 3,785 m³/day of brine unsuitable for consumption).  The new reverse osmosis trains now recover 2.65 cubic metres of water per minute that was previously discharged as brine, averaging to more than 15,000 cubic metres per month.[2]

Japan has sent 30 mobile desalination units to Bangladesh.  At a ceremony held early this week in Dhaka, the Japanese ambassador, Masato Watanabe, gifted the desalination units to the Relief and Disaster Management Minister, Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.   The equipment may be used in disaster-areas, to convert river water into potable water.[3]   Each desalination unit is capable of providing enough water for 160,000 people a day.  The Japanese government spent ¥1.5 billion yen on the units (approximately $12.5 million).

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