Water Treatment: Resource Recovery and Sustainability

Water Treatment: Resource Recovery and Sustainability provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research in increasing the sustainability of water treatment processes. The use of nontraditional water sources, such as desalination of seawater and reuse of treated wastewater, is increasingly important given the paucity of freshwater resources globally. Only a very small fraction of the Earth’s water is fresh surface water easily available for use, while 40% of the global population are classed as living in high water stress areas. As such, increasing effort is being made to tap into nontraditional water sources, such as desalination of seawater and reuse of treated wastewater, to make up this shortfall.

This book presents the latest research in methods for limiting the environmental and economic costs of the processes involved in using nontraditional sources of water. To increase the efficiency of treatment processes, research has focused on recovery of resources from their associated waste streams; generation of: heat, pressure, and electricity from salinity gradients; recovery of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates; recovery of valuable minerals such as metals concentrated in desalination brine; and optimization of water reuse from wastewater. This comprehensive book is aimed at graduate students, researchers, and academics working or teaching in this subject area and will be of interest to water industry professionals.