Seawater intakes for desalination plants in Libya

Seawater intakes systems are the essential and integral part of a composit seawater desalination plant and it has to be designed with due care to cater to all conditions of operation and stoppage and also prevention of carry-over of materials like seaweed and sand, which may affect the operation of the plant. While considerable progress has been made in the water desalination technology not much appears to have been done to improve the intake systems. In fact each coast has its specific problem for seawater intake. In some it may be sand, in others mud, shellfish or other organisms. This paper highlights the main problem associated with the Libyan seacoast, i.e. seaweeds, its nature and presence, various designs adopted to overcome this at existing desalination plants and also the cost influence of the seawater intake system on the total project costs.