On May 16-th, 2010, Israel consortium unveiled officially the biggest of its kind desalination station in the world. It works using the principle of reverse osmosis and is placed near the coastal city of Hadera. The Israel company H2ID, jointly owned by IDE Technologies and Shikun & Binui, developed the project. The station delivers 127mln cubic meters desalinated water, or nearly 20% of the annual consumption of households in Israel.
This is the third of series of five stations for water desalination, which are expected to be finished in the next few years. It is expect for them to deliver approximately 750mln cubic meters water per year and it needs to be built because the current water sources are getting insufficient or exhausted due to the insufficient winter rainfalls and increment of human populations. The station is financed mostly by foreign sources and nearly $425mln came from European banks.
In fact, the process of reverse osmosis uses semi-permeable membrane, through which the salted sea water passes forced by pressure. The membrane holds the salt and purifies the water.
Another competing method is boiling the water at a pressure lower than atmospheric. At a pressure like that water has much lower temperature of boiling, which increases the effectiveness of the method. Disadvantage is that it produces practically distilled water, which isn’t drinkable and needs additional minerals to be dissolved within.