Freezing-melting process and desalination: I. review of the state-of-the-art

A thorough literature survey was conducted on the freezing-melting (FM) process for desalination. Collected literatures were studied and analyzed to identify the current state-of-the-art of the FM process, and its practical limitations. The main advantages of the FM process are the requirement of low energy and low temperature operation compared to thermal desalination. Other advantages are less scaling or fouling and fewer corrosion problems, ability to use inexpensive plastics or low-cost material, and absence of pretreatment. The three broad classes of FM process are: direct contact freezing, indirect contact freezing, and vacuum freezing. Different types of processing options in each class are discussed with their operating principles and merits and downsides of each process.