Desalination refers to the process of removing excess salt and other minerals from water.
More generally, desalination may also refer to the removal of salts and minerals, as in soil desalination.
Water is desalinated in order to be converted to fresh water suitable for human consumption or irrigation. Sometimes the process produces table salt as a by-product.
Most of the modern interest in desalination is focused on developing cost-effective ways of providing fresh water for human use in regions where the availability of fresh water is limited.
The desalination process has been used for many decades although the first industrial-sized plants weren’t built until the 1960s.
The demand for desalinated water has been so great that there are now approximately 20,000 facilities across the globe focusing on the processing of saltwater.
According to the International Desalination Association, more than 300 million people world-wide now consume water that has been processed by the desalination industry.
According to Adroit Market Research, the Desalination Industry was valued at USD $15.43 billion in 2017.
