Brackish water management
Brackish Water Management
As freshwater sources in the United States become increasingly strained, desalination of nontraditional sources (including seawater, saline groundwater, and wastewater) is becoming a competitive alternative. Our group’s research in this area is being developed in collaboration with others involved in the National Alliance for Water Innovations (NAWI), which was recently selected to establish the DOE Energy-Water Desalination Hub. As the leader of NAWI’s road-mapping activities, David is involved in defining areas of inquiry with the greatest potential to significantly reduce the cost and energy requirements of current desalination practices.
Desalination produces a concentrated brine waste that is expensive to treat and dispose of. For most inland locations, brine management makes potential groundwater desalination projects cost prohibitive. Our group is focused on ways to improve brackish groundwater desalination brines, particularly in the context of municipal water treatment facilities. Current projects are working toward a better fundamental understanding of calcium and silica scaling and precipitation phenomena in highly supersaturated solutions, particularly in the presence of antiscalant additives