Desalination, 69 (1988) 297-307 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands 297 Techno-Economic Feasibility of Extracting Minerals from Desalination Brines I.S. AL-MUTAZ and K.M. WAGIALLA Department of Chemical Engineering, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh 11421 (Saudi Arabia), Tel. 4676870 (Received January 22,1988; in revised form April 24,1988) SUMMARY Extraction of minerals from desalination brines represents a potentially im- portant source of minerals. It is usually recommended for reducing fresh water production cost and minimizing waste disposal. In this paper, a techno-eco- nomic appraisal for the production of sodium chloride and caustic soda from Saudi desalination brines is presented. Keywords: minerals, desalination, seawater, brine, sodium chloride, caustic soda. INTRODUCTION The Arabian Gulf countries have about 60% of the total world desalting capacity at the end of 1984. Table I shows the world desalting market in 1985. About 67.6% of the total capacity installed are of the multi-stage flash (MSF) type. Moreover, the MSF plants account for over 84% of the large size plants erected so far. In the Arabian peninsula, the installed desalination capacity increased from 0.5 x lo6 m3/d in 1973 to 5.8 x lo6 m3/d in 1984, over a ten-fold increase. The capacity of the large plants installed during this period were as follows: Jubail II plant, Saudi Arabia 253.5 mgd Urn El-Nar plant, Abu Dhabi 95.0 mgd Jeddah IV, Saudi Arabia 58.0 mgd Al-Khobar II, Saudi Arabia 51.0 mgd Doha plant, Qatar 50.0 mgd Shuaiba, Kuwait 45.0 mgd Table II shows the desalination inventory of the Arabian Gulf countries. Due to these large capacities, mineral extraction from the desalination blow- down is a major point of consideration in Arabian Gulf countries at the present OOll-9164/88/$03.50 0 1988 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.