Approaches and Processes for Recovering Reverse Osmosis Discharges from Desalination Plants

The management of concentrated brine waste is the main challenge of seawater desalination by reverse osmosis (RO) because of its negative impacts on the contamination of soil, ground water, and the marine eco-system. Consequently, it is necessary to develop alternative methods for brine treatment that allow the reducing of the negative effect on the marine environment. This paper investigates also diverse environmental impacts associated with brine and its disposal methods; it highlights also the desalination process in Algeria by presenting some statistics about RO brine. According to the experts, the desalination of seawater in Algeria passed from 2.26 million m
³
per day in 2011 to 2,580,000 in 2020, with the optimum recovery ratio of 45%, which indicate that the discharged brine quantity is important than the desalted water. In that sense and according to the brine management analyses, the brine recovering methods are depending to many parameters, which make the choice of such method as a big challenge in order to protect the marine environment.