THEORY OF INVENTIVE PROBLEM SOLVING (TRIZ) CASE STUDY: DEVELOPMENT OF A HYBRID SEAWATER DESALINATION PROCESS

Nowadays, industrial seawater desalination process is of paramount importance to supply potable water in world's many regions where it is scarce. This work is a part of an innovative approach aimed at improving industrial seawater desalination process using the theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ). The obtained results have oriented our research way to the development of an innovative hybrid process coupling freezing and reverse osmosis (RO) desalination. The freezing desalination is used as seawater pre-treatment upstream RO modules. The benefits of the proposed hybrid process systems are the enhanced pretreated water quality, energy savings, environmental friendliness, and reduced capital and operating costs due to the higher efficiency and process productivity.