Treatment of Desalination Brine Using an Experimental Solar Pond

Brine from seawater desalination plants is deposed to the sea causing a negative impact on the marine life. Solar evaporation ponds are especially suitable to dispose of reject brine from inland desalination plants in arid and semi-arid areas due to the abundance of solar energy. Nearly all forms of salt production require evaporation of water to concentrate brine and ultimately produce salt crystals. In this article research, an experimental shallow solar pond (SSP) having a surface area of 1*1 m2 and depth of 20 cm was built. Solar pond using two reflector mirrors extending for five days from 12 to 16 July 2015 was tested. Mirrors, which are movable for five different angles that makes with horizontal, were used as reflectors in order to increase the thermal energy for the surface of the solar pond during the day. The main factors affecting the evaporation rate which are relative humidity, wind speed, ambient air temperature and solar radiation were studied. The results showed that the little of decreasing evaporation rate was observed by increasing relative humidity and maximum evaporation rate was observed at relative humidity of 67.6%, while slight increasing of evaporation rate was observed by increasing ambient air temperature, evaporation rate appears to decrease slightly as wind speed increases and gradual increasing of evaporation rate with increasing solar radiation. Comparisons between experimental and theoretical results have been performed which good agreement has been achieved. Results showed that evaporation rate increases with decreasing the mirror's angle that makes with horizontal β. It was concluded that using two mirrors are very effective more than using one mirror when they are used as reflectors and that the best performance of the evaporation can be achieved when the mirrors are employed as reflectors. In conclusion, this system proved to be promising using two mirrors which reduced the solar pond area and hence reduced area needed for brine evaporation in Gaza strip desalination plants. The research can be further developed to achieve better results using large scale solar pond

Quantification of leachate discharged to groundwater using the water balance method and the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model

Landfills are a source of groundwater pollution in Gaza Strip. This study focused on Deir Al Balah landfill, which is a unique sanitary landfill site in Gaza Strip (i.e. it has a lining system and a leachate recirculation system). The objective of this article is to assess the generated leachate quantity and percolation to the groundwater aquifer at a specific site, using the approaches of (i) the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance model (HELP) and (ii) the water balance method (WBM). The results show that when using the HELP model, the average volume of leachate discharged from Deir Al Balah landfill during the period 1997 to 2007 was around, 6800 m3/year. Meanwhile, the average volume of leachate percolated through the clay layer was 550 m3/year, which represents around 8% of the generated leachate. Meanwhile, the WBM indicated that the average volume of leachate discharged from Deir Al Balah

Comprehensive Solutions for the Water Crisis in Gaza Strip

Gaza Strip is one of the most scarce water resources areas in the region. The coastal aquifer is the only water resource in Gaza Strip and it suffers from rising deficit in the water budget because of continuous increase in water demand for different uses which has been leading to fall in the quality and quantity of groundwater. The problem include inefficiency of infrastructure facilities, and water distribution networks that facing deterioration, illegal connections and leakage. This paper aims at reviewing the current water situation in Gaza Strip and suggestions quantities technical, legal and managerial solutions taking into considerations the current conditions and the approximate costs of applying these solutions. If the suggested solutions are applied within the same period of time, it will save huge quantities of water and utilize alternative resources to cover some of the consumption. These quantities are estimated to be about 35 MCM/yr of water initially and will reach 55 MCM/yr within the next years if solutions are applied on a large scale. The reserved water quantities equals a water production of regional desalination plant (as planned within PWA strategy) with capital cost of 200 million dollar and high operational cost

طريقة جديدة لإدارة نوعية المياه الجوفية

The main source of water in Gaza Strip is the shallow aquifer, the quality of the aquifer's groundwater is extremely deteriorated in terms of salinity. Salinization of groundwater may be caused and influenced by many variables. Studying the relation of between these variables and salinity is often a complex and nonlinear process, making it suitable to model by Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). In order to model groundwater salinity in Gaza Strip using ANN it is necessary to gather data for training purposes. Initially, it is assumed that the groundwater salinity (represented by chloride concentration, mg/l) may be affected by some variables as: recharge rate (R), abstraction (Q), abstraction average rate (Qr), life time (Lt), groundwater level Wl, aquifer thickness (Th), depth from surface to well screen (Dw), and distance from sea shore line (Ds). Data were extracted from 56 wells, most of them are municipal wells and they almost cover the total area of Gaza Strip. After a number of trials, the best neural network was determined to be Multilayer Perceptron network (MLP) with four layers: an input layer of 6 neurons, first hidden layer with 10 neurons, second hidden layer with 7 neurons and the output layer with 1 neuron. The ANN model generated very good results depending on the high correlation between the observed and simulated values of chloride concentration. The correlation coefficient (r) was 0.9848. The high value of (r) showed that the simulated chloride concentration values using the ANN model were in very good agreement with the observed chloride concentration which mean that ANN model is useful and applicable for groundwater salinity modeling. The ANN model proved that chloride concentration in groundwater is directly affected by abstraction (Q), abstraction average rate (Qr) and life time (Lt) and it was inversely affected by recharge rate (R) and aquifer thickness (Th). The approach is reasonable for the new planning and management of water resources through the attended reconstruction process in Gaza.تعتبر المياه الجوفية المصدر الرئيسي للمياه في قطاع غزة و هي معرضة للتلوث وخصوصاً فيما يتعلق بازدياد معدلات الملوحة التي تتواجد وتتأثر بالعديد من العوامل. دراسة هذه العوامل عادة ما تكون عملية معقدة مما يجلها مناسبة لتدرس من خلال نظام الشبكات العصبية الصناعية. إن نمذجة ملوحة المياه الجوفية من خلال الشبكات العصبية الصناعية تتطلب جمع البيانات اللازمة لعملية التدريب التي تقوم بها الشبكة العصبية. في البداية أُفترض أن ملوحة المياه الجوفية المتمثلة بكمية الكلوريد في المياه الجوفية تتأثر بتسعة عوامل هي معدل تسرب مياه الأمطار للخزان الجوفي و كمية السحب الخاصة بكل بئر ومعدل السحب من الخزان الجوفي و المدة الزمنية التي تعرض فيها الخزان الجوفي للسحب و منسوب المياه الجوفية و سمك الخزان الجوفي و عمق الخزان الجوفي و المسافة بين منطقة السحب و البحر ولقد استخرجت هذه البيانات من 56 بئر مياه تغطي معظم مساحة قطاع غزة. تم تنفيذ عدة محاولات للحصول على نموذج يعطى نتائج جيدة. في البداية تمت عملية النمذجة باستخدام جميع العوامل المفترضة و من النماذج التي تم تطويرها تم دراسة تأثير العوامل على تركيز الكلوريد في المياه الجوفية و بناء على الدراسة تبين أنه يمكن تجاهل بعض العوامل و تم عمل محاولات أخرى تبين من خلالها أن أفضل شبكة عصبية تم التوصل إليها هيMultilayer Perceptron network (MLP) و تتكون من أربع طبقات هي طبقة المدخلات و يوجد بها 6 نيورن و الطبقة المخفية الأولى و يوجد بها 10 نيورن و الطبقة المخفية الثانية و يوجد بها 7 نيورن وطبقة المخرجات و يوجد بها نيرون واحد. طبقة المدخلات تمثل العوامل التالية تركيز الكلوريد الابتدائي و معدل تسرب مياه الأمطار للخزان الجوفي و كمية السحب الخاصة بكل بئر ومعدل السحب من الخزان الجوفي و المدة الزمنية التي تعرض فيها الخزان الجوفي للسحب و سمك الخزان الجوفي أما طبقة المخرجات فتمثل تركيز الكلوريد النهائي. لقد أعطت الشبكة العصبية نتائج ممتازة اعتماداً على التقارب الكبير بين القيم الحقيقة و القيم المستخرجة من النموذج حيث بلغت قيمة معامل الارتباط 0.9848 و هذا يعني أن هناك توافقا كبيراً بين القيم الحقيقة و القيم المستخرجة من النموذج مما يجعل النموذج صالحاً للاستخدام و التطبيق. تم استخدام النموذج بنجاح كأداة لدراسة تأثير العوامل على تركيز الكلوريد حيث تبين أن تركيز الكلوريد يتناسب طردياً مع كمية السحب الخاصة بكل بئر ومعدل السحب من الخزان الجوفي والمدة الزمنية التي تعرض فيها الخزان الجوفي للسحب و أنها تتناسب عكسياً مع معدل تسرب مياه الأمطار للخزان الجوفي و سمك الخزان الجوفي واستخدم النموذج كوسيلة للتنبؤ بتركيز الكلوريد من الخزان الجوفي في المستقبل وذلك في حالة إعادة إعمار غزة أيضاً

Use of Nanofiltration for Nitrate Removal from Gaza Strip Groundwater

Due to excessive usage of nitrate fertilizer in agriculture and discharging of wastewater from treatment plants, and leakage of wastewater form cesspools, nitrate level in the groundwater has increased. Elevated nitrate in water resources could lead to serious problem including eutrophication, and potential hazards for human and animal health. The aim of this study is to investigate the use of Nanofltraiton for nitrate removal in Gaza Strip as case study. One commercial membrane (NF90) was used in this study. The stirred dead end flow model was used. In addition, two types of water were used: Aqueous solution and real water. The performance of the tested membrane was measured in terms of flux rate and nitrate rejection under different operation conditions: nitrate concentration was varied between 50-400mg/L, applied pressure (6-12) bar and TDS concentration (500-3570) mg/l. The percentage of nitrate removal was in the range of 0.62% and 66.68% and the flux rate ranges between 2.61 and 30.12 L/m2.hr. These values depend on operation conditions such as nitrate concentration, TDS compostion and operation pressure. In real water, the percentage of nitrate removal was influenced by TDS value in general, but to be more specific, it was found that the concentration of sulphat has a great effect on nitrate removal, as the sulphat concentration increased the nitrate removal decreased. NF90 was observed to be an effective membrane for nitrate removal of Gaza Strip at higher permeate flux and lower applied pressure, especially in North Gaza Strip were low TDS and Sulphat concentration were observed

Assessment of groundwater quality due to municipal solid waste landfills leachate

Landfills are one of the groundwater pollution sources in Gaza Strip. This study focuses on two landfills operating in Gaza Strip; the first is Dear Al Balah landfill which has a lining system and the second Gaza landfill which does not have lining system. The objective of this study was assessment degree of groundwater pollution around the two landfills due to percolated leachate from the two landfills. Groundwater samples from 18 water wells located downstream of landfills in addition to two leachate samples were collected during dry season in November 2008 to study possible impact of leachate percolation into groundwater. Several physical and chemical parameters were tested in groundwater and leachate samples, these include temperature, pH and EC, NO 3, NH 4, Cl, SO 4, BOD, COD, TOC, Pb, Fe, Cu, Cd, Zn. The Geographic Information System (GIS) was used as a tool to illustrate spatial distribution of the pollutant indicators around both landfills in the periods 1995, 1999, 2001 and 2008, respectively. The results showed that most of wells were contaminated, where concentration of most physical and chemical parameters were above acceptable standard levels for potable or irrigation water. It is quite evident that landfills present potential threats to the surrounding environment

Analysis of landfill components in estimating the percolated leachate to groundwater using the HELP model

Landfills are one of the groundwater pollution sources in Gaza Strip. This study focuses on two landfills operating in Gaza Strip; the first is Dear Al Balah landfill which has a lining system and the second landfill is Gaza landfill which does not have a lining system. The main objective of the present study is to assess the effect of landfill components on percolated leachate to groundwater aquifer using the Hydrologic Evaluation of Landfill Performance (HELP) model. A comprehensive analysis of landfill components affecting the generated leachate was conducted. The results showed that the landfill components were ordered in priority according to their effects on percolated leachate through clay layer as follows: (1) existing of lining system enhances the percolation reduction up to 87%, (2) 30% reduction of rainfall level enhances the percolation reduction up to 50%, (3) 50% reduction of existing landfill area enhances

Optimal use of Nanofiltration for Nitrate Removal from Gaza Strip Municipal Wells

Due to excessive usage of nitrate fertilizer in agriculture and discharging of wastewater from treatment plants, and leakage of wastewater form cesspools, nitrate level of water resources are increased. Increased nitrate in water resources could lead to serious problem including eutrophication, and potential hazards for human and animal health. The aim of this study is to optimize the use of Nanofltraiton for nitrate removal in Gaza Strip as case study. One commercial membrane (NF90) was used in this study. The stirred dead end flow model was used in addition, two types of water was used: Aqueous solution and real water. The performance of the tested membrane was measured in terms of flux rate and nitrate rejection under different operation conditions: nitrate concentration was varied between 50-400mg/L, applied pressure (6-12) bar and TDS concentration (500-3570) mg/l. The percentage of nitrate removal in real water was in the range of 0.52% and 55.63% and the flux rate range between 2.61 and 30.12 L/m2.hr. These values depend on operation conditions such as nitrate concentration, TDS composition and operation pressure. In real water, the percentage of nitrate removal was influenced by TDS value in general, but to be more specific, it was found that the concentration of sulphat has a great effect on nitrate removal, as the sulphat concentration increased the nitrate removal decreased. The optimum operating pressures are 8.6, 11.6 and 10.8 bar at H104, E142A and D75 well. Which achieve Palestine standard (70 mg/L) and high flux rate 7.46, 26.66 and 8.74 L/m2.hr. NF90 was observed to be an effective membrane for nitrate removal of Gaza Strip at higher permeate flux and lower applied pressure, especially in North Gaza Strip were low TDS and Sulphat concentration were observed. Keywords: NF90, Nitrate, Rejection, Well, Total dissolved solids and Pressure