Freezing-melting process and desalination: Review of present status and future prospects

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.