Drivers, challenges, and emerging technologies for desalination of high-salinity brines: A critical review

Hypersaline brines are of growing environmental concern. While high-salinity desalination and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) increasingly attractive treatment options, the high salt scalant contents pose considerable technical difficulties to existing techniques. In this review, we introduce sources hypersaline brines, examine factors driving desalination, present thermodynamic minimum energy ZLD, highlighting effects mineral precipitation imperfect rejection. We then critically prospects challenges 10 alternative technologies for desalination: electrodialysis, osmotically-mediated reverse osmosis, forward membrane distillation, humidification-dehumidification, solvent extraction supercritical water freeze clathrate hydrate solar thermal desalination. Although electrodialysis osmosis show promise having competitive efficiencies, these membrane-based techniques still constrained by concentrate salinity limits. Recovery reuse heat will be vital competitiveness thermally-driven approaches. Technologies that intrinsically precipitate salts in bulk solution, namely can advantageously avoid scaling. Due highly heterogeneous nature streams wide array end-use goals, market ultimately best served a range different with distinctive capabilities.