Utilization of seawater desalination concentrate, technology and commercial potential in China.

Mining valuable minerals from desalination concentrate is a promising path to improve resource utilization efficiency and reduce the environmental impact. With the rapid expansion of the desalination industry and the improvement of extraction technology, the comprehensive utilization of desalination concentrate is approaching commercial reality. This paper summarized the development status of the desalination industry within and outside China. On this basis, the economic potential of valuable minerals mining from seawater desalination concentrate was estimated. Our results showed that when the in-operation membrane desalination projects in China run at full capacity, the discharge of seawater concentrate is about 1,696,900 m3/d. The high commercial potential chemicals are boron, lithium, and rubidium because of their high concentration and unit price. If continuous production can be achieved, its economic value will be more than desalinated water production. In addition, this paper summarized the extraction technologies of magnesium, potassium, rubidium, boron, strontium, and lithium in desalination concentrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]