Drought Proofing Antarctica or "Selling Ice to the Eskimos"

Sea water desalination

Australia’s largest research station in Antarctica, Davis Station, is about to receive a new seawater desalination system, which will supply the entire fresh water needs of the station and its staff.

The new system designed and manufactured by NIROSOFT INDUSTRIES will produce up to 100,000 litres per day of desalinated and purified sea water.

Surprising as it may seem, Antarctica is an arid place, at least when it comes to fresh water sources. The location of Davis Station - on part of the Antarctic mainland which is ice-free during summer, but frozen during winter, makes seawater the only available source of water.  Therefore, seawater desalination is the "natural" choice as a reliable means for water supply.

As the system is installed in a climate controlled building, small footprint was critical to the design of the system. The compact unit system - fully mounted on one skid - includes all the equipment required for the desalination process:

• Mechanical screen pre-filtration: for removal of coarse particles
• Ultra-filtration (UF) membranes: for complete clarification of the water and removal of algae and bacteria
• Reverse Osmosis (RO): membranes for desalination
• All required pumps, controls and piping.

In addition, the system includes a state-of-the-art energy recovery unit, which recovers the excess energy (pressure and flow) present in the RO brine stream and recovers it back to the feed flow. The energy recovery unit reduces the overall power consumption of the desalination system by approx 40%. Since power is a prime commodity in Antarctica, produced by on-site generators using diesel transported by sea from the Australian “mainland”, this factor is very important, beyond the environmental benefits of reduced emissions.

The system also includes advanced control and automation equipment, which will allow automatic operation and remote monitoring from the Australian Antarctic Divisions headquarters in Hobart, Tasmania.

The new desalination plant was supplied to Australia in less than three months, and was tested and commissioned in Tasmania, prior to its shipping to Antarctica for installation.

Date of commissioning:  January 2007

Davis Station - Aerial view 

Davis Station - Climate controlled building for desalination unit