Brackish Desalination and Denitrification for Sustainable and Renewable Irrigation: Desirows Life European Project

This paper describes a demonstrative example of an industrial desalination and denitrification system based on renewable energy resources for a sustainable and efficient irrigation. A demo wastewater treatment plant is located in the ArcoSur Mar Menor facilities (Cartagena, Spain) aiming to maximize the reclaimed water recovery from the brine and to remove the relevant pollutants. This demo plant is an industrial combination of biological, membrane separation and thermal technologies that allow us to obtain reclaimed water for irrigation and a dried salt with potential market value. The plant consists of an autonomous renewable energy off-grid solution to cover all energy demand of the brine treatment. Life Desirows European Project also combines different evaporation technologies and includes a cooling tower based on the evaporation of brackish water and consecutive condensation of the generated humid air, mostly at ambient pressure. The project is expected to reduce considerable the energy demand and emissions. This solution is easily extensive toward other areas with similar water scarcity problems, which currently affects at least 10.4% of the EU territory and 14.3% of the EU population, mainly in Southern Europe.