A Feasibility Study - Aaltodoc - Aalto-yliopisto

collected as the product water and the process repeated in each upcoming stage
(Macedonio et al. 2012). Figure 14 has an example of a MED process.
Figure 14. Multi-effect distillation (Buros 2000).
At present, MSF is clearly the dominant thermal desalination method, with a market
share of almost 26 % of the global desalination capacity. MED has a share of slightly
over 8 %. A presentation of the market shares of the different desalination technologies
is given in Figure 15. It is clear that the reverse osmosis (RO) method is the leading
technology globally.
Figure 15. Installed desalination capacity by process (IDA 2011).
Thermal based desalination plants are usually the largest in existence, with daily
production capacities reaching to hundreds of thousands of cubic meters. Still, thermal
methods are losing ground to membrane technologies. Figure 16 highlights the fact that
a majority of new desalination plants are using reverse osmosis (RO) instead of MSF or
MED. Still, thermal desalination plays a major role in supplying water to some areas of
the world, for instance in the Middle-East due to the low price of fossil fuels in the area
(Macedonio et al. 2012).
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