Exponential growth in population and rapid industrialization has put immense stress on existing freshwater sources for drinking water and irrigation. Desalination is the process of removal of salts and minerals from saline water or brine. Currently, thermal desalination and reverse osmosis are the most widely used desalination technologies. The challenges of desalination are high-energy requirement and capital cost for traditional desalination techniques. Hence, there is a need to develop a new treatment technique that can lower desalination energy for sustainable development.

In this study, we will be presenting a new potential process for water purification, Clathrate hydrate based desalination. In this process, water molecules form cages around a guest gas/liquid component effectively separating itself from the brine solution at temperatures higher than normal freezing temperature of water. These crystals when melted are essentially freshwater and the guest component can be re-used for the process again. The salts are occluded from the hydrate cages. The advantage of Clathrate hydrate based desalination for produced water treatment is that it is environmentally benign, can treat high TDS solution and lower energy consumption.

Primary Author:
Aziz Alhejaili
University of Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Conference Presenter:
Dr. Nagu Daraboina
Assistant Professor
University of Tulsa
Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Co-Authors:
Samuel Limon, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK
Ponnivalavan Babu, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK