Desalination is the process through which excess salts, and other minerals are removed from seawater. This is done so that it can be used safely as drinking water, for human and animal consumption. This water can also be used for irrigation, or in industries. Desalination is needed where there is a shortage of natural drinking water, due to a lack of water that comes about through rainfall. This is especially so in the Middle East, which lies in one of the driest regions of the world. These places with little to no rainfall, need to rely on other forms of water provision. It is for this reason, that seawater is used to provide the water that is necessary for drinking, irrigation, and industries of the Middle East, especially so in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) (Al Serkal, 2007).
There are many methods in which desalination can come about. One of these methods is the multistage flash (MSF) process. Despite the high cost it, has a high production output. This MSF plant can also be coupled to a heat source, and so produce power as well (Al-Sheyji, 1998;Hamed, 2004). The MSF process has been in use for more than 40 years. Due to its simplicity, reliability, and huge output capacity, it is used the most in the region (Hamed, 2004). Distillation and the reverse osmosis (RO) processes are main features of the MSF method of desalination. During this process, water is distilled by flashing a portion of the water into steam. This happens in multiple stages, through heat exchangers. With the Reverse Osmosis (RO) technique, a membrane technical filtration method is used. Through this method large molecules, and salts or ions, can be removed from the water, by applying pressure to the water. This happens on one side of the membrane, or filter (Lenntech, 2011; NJTI, 2011). .
According to Hamed (2004), another older process, the multi-effect distillation (MED) combined with thermal vapor compression (TVC) is used to a lesser extent.