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Asif Iqbal
Doha
Prime Minister and Minister of Interior HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Nasser bin Khalifa al Thani on Tuesday inaugurated Qatar's first water desalination plant using the reverse osmosis technology.
Built at a cost of QR1.75 billion the Ras Abu Fontas (A3) project will have a capacity to provide 36 million gallons of desalinated water daily to meet the needs of about 1 million people in the country. This is the second and the final phase of the project. The first phase was completed in September 2016.
The inauguration of the A3 plant represents a milestone in the world of desalination, as this is the first time that reverse osmosis technology has been used on a large-scale production plant in Qatar, said the Minister for Energy and Industry HE Mohammed bin Saleh al Sada, after the inauguration ceremony. So far, evaporation-based technology has been used to desalinate water, he added.
"The RO technology is cost effective. Unlike the multi-stage flash distillation (MSF) process, RO lets seawater back into the sea, without the use of a gas-powered turbine," Sada explained.
"This returned water has no impact on the temperature of the body of the water into which it is re-injected, unlike in thermal-based systems," he added.
Previous implementation of RO in Qatar has been limited and on small scale, such as the trial in Dukhan, where 750 m3/day of high salinity water was treated for boiler feedwater.
One of the reasons for the choice of thermal-based desalination in the past has been short-term water storage.
Reverse osmosis (RO) is a process that requires a membrane barrier to separate salt from water. Because RO technology requires considerably less energy to operate than distillation, it is considered ideal for desalination in the world's water scarce areas.
The A3 project has been developed under an independent water project (IWP) model of the Qatar Electricity and Water Company (QEWC) for a 25-year period.
Qatar Electricity and Water Company General Manager Fahad al Mohannadi said the business model of the project was on a build-operate-transfer (BOT) system."Generally all the water desalination projects in the country have a life-span of about 25 years, depending on the type of tubes used. However, the A3 project can last up to 45 years as only the membrane needs to be replaced periodically," he added.
