Assessing Seawater Desalination using Reverse Osmosis and Multi-effect Distillation for Kuwait using Life Cycle Assessment: fossil fuels versus solar power

Abstract

Sustainable water production is one of the top five challenges facing humanity within the upcoming decade, for arid regions the situation is aggravated. Countries worldwide are urged to balance of the SDG 6 (clean water and sanitation), SDG 7 (affordable and clean energy) to contribute to SDG 13 (climate action). This research evaluates seawater desalination in arid regions using multi-effect distillation (MED) and seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) using fossil fuels versus solar power versus solar collector system (SCS) and and photovoltaic (PV). Four alternatives were investigated MED (NG), MED (SCS), SWRO (NG) and SWRO (PV) using life cycle assessment (LCA) to desalinate one cubic meter of seawater using a second-order boundary (i.e., cradle to gate) in which the operational parameters include: energy, materials, chemicals and additives in accordance with ISO 14040/4. The foreground data is based on field data collection that considers water intake characteristics: salinity and turbidity. The background inventories are based on Ecoinvent database v.3. The life cycle impact assessment is based on midpoint analysis using ReCiPe midpoint (H) v1.10. The results indicates that the primary fuel exergy and the allocation of energy in water electricity co-generation is the defining factor.