Saline groundwater (SGW) from coastal aquifers is an alternative source for seawater in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination and holds several advantages over seawater. During seawater intrusion into the coastal aquifer, boron is adsorbed to the sediment, and its concentration is reduced with respect to seawater. This study aims to quantify the advantages of using SGW for RO desalination that result from lower boron concentration, stable temperature, and lower salinity as compared to seawater desalination. Firstly, SGW from the coastal aquifer in Israel was sampled and analyzed chemically, and desalination experiments were conducted to calibrate and validate an RO membrane transport simulation code. Secondly, simulations of a large-scale desalination plant (60 million m³ y⁻¹) that uses seawater and SGW as feed were performed. Results show that due to the lower boron concentration in SGW, lower capacity for the 2nd (boron removal) pass of desalination is needed, which saves 21% of the 2nd pass volume compared with seawater. An environmental techno-economic analysis shows that using SGW for desalination (compared with seawater) reduces the operational energy and costs by 17% (∼$4 million per year). Overall, SGW desalination is found to be energy and cost-efficient compared with seawater desalination, and thus, reduces the process environmental load.

中文翻译：

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考虑到硼去除要求，沿海含盐地下水淡化比海水淡化的优势

来自沿海含水层的含盐地下水 (SGW) 是反渗透 (RO) 脱盐中海水的替代来源，与海水相比具有多项优势。在海水侵入沿海含水层期间，硼被吸附到沉积物中，其浓度相对于海水降低。本研究旨在量化使用 SGW 进行 RO 脱盐的优势，这些优势与海水淡化相比，硼浓度较低，温度稳定，盐度较低。首先，对以色列沿海含水层的 SGW 进行采样和化学分析，并进行了脱盐实验以校准和验证 RO 膜传输模拟代码。其次，模拟大型海水淡化厂（6000 万米³ y ^-1) 使用海水和 SGW 作为饲料。结果表明，由于SGW中较低的硼浓度，需要较低的脱盐第二道（除硼）容量，与海水相比，节省了21%的二道容积。一项环境技术经济分析表明，使用 SGW 进行海水淡化（与海水相比）可将运营能源和成本降低 17%（每年约 400 万美元）。总体而言，与海水淡化相比，SGW 海水淡化具有能源和成本效益，因此降低了过程环境负荷。