Title: Brine residual disposal report

Subject: Sea disposal of the brine residual produced by a desalination plant.

Client: Multinational Investment Company

Investment category: RO Unit for seawater desalination

Description: The project included the design of a seawater desalination unit and the underwater pipeline that would dispose brine waste into the sea bottom. The assessment included: water yield, brine yield, pipeline specifications and a water solubility and mixture model for the distribution of the brine waste in the Posidonia oceanica (protected habitat) patches at the sea bottom.

Environment: Regarding the brine disposal at sea, the area off-shore the said investment belongs to the Natura 2000 network of conservation areas. In order to understand the expected diffusion of the over-saline front, at the spot of disposal, we assessed empirical relationships and experiments . We also examined different simulation scenarios, by use of a simulation model. The results of the simulation were compared and finally we selected two alternative ways of brine disposal. We argued that the implementation of the project would affect the environment to a very small extent, owing to the low amounts of brine to be disposed and the appropriate selection of the disposal spot.