ABSTRACT
The availability of affordable clean water is one of the key technological, social, and economical challenges of the twenty-first century. Clean water, acknowledged as a basic human right by the United Nations (General Assembly GA/10967), is still unavailable to one of seven people worldwide. Because of increasing groundwater extraction, salt water ingress in wells and aquifers continues. As a consequence, interest in desalination technologies is steadily growing. Over the years, several desalination technologies have been developed among which distillation, reverse osmosis, and electrodialysis are the most commonly known and the most widespread. 1 There is an increased interest in rendering these technologies more energy and cost efficient both for the deionization of seawater as well as for brackish water. Because there is more brackish water than fresh water in the world, it is evident that it is particularly attractive to utilize the large brackish water resources for human consumption and residential use, agriculture, and industry.
