{"id":4165,"date":"2019-08-28T10:54:03","date_gmt":"2019-08-28T10:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ide-tech.com\/?p=4165"},"modified":"2023-06-07T06:22:34","modified_gmt":"2023-06-07T06:22:34","slug":"when-innovation-and-necessity-meet-the-birth-of-israeli-desalination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.ide-tech.com\/en\/blog\/when-innovation-and-necessity-meet-the-birth-of-israeli-desalination\/","title":{"rendered":"When Innovation and Necessity Meet – The Birth of Israeli Desalination"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Alexander Zarchin (1897-1988) was a Ukrainian-born Israeli engineer and passionate inventor, with many remarkable developments in chemistry and physics under his wing. After emigrating from Russia to Israel in 1947, he became one of the pioneers of seawater desalination in Israel, and was also the inventor of Vacuum Freezing Vapor Compression – or VFVC – a freeze desalination method for seawater (read more about \u201cThe Zarchin Process\u201d below).<\/p>\n

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Collaborating with Zarchin and the US-based Fairbanks Whitney Corporation, the government of Israel established the “Desalination Plants Ltd” Company in 1961. A small R&D organization, which later became “Israel Desalination Engineering Ltd” and eventually IDE Technologies Ltd in 1965.<\/p>\n

1963 marked the year in which the first freeze desalination process demo plant became operational in Eilat. But the plant’s life proved to be short and it was shut down in 1967, soon after an imported dual-purpose MSF (Multi-Stage Flash)<\/a> desalination plant began supplying water to the town’s grid. Although Zarchin’s freeze desalination wonder was deemed too expensive, the fruits of his developments laid the foundations for more advanced desalination technologies. IDE\u2019s Mechanical Vapor Compressor (MVC), for example, utilized the mechanical compressor originally developed for VFVC.<\/p>\n

But despite the Eilat short-lived success, Zarchin\u2019s creative fire was far from extinguished, and among his greatest contributions was promoting seawater desalination in Israel. Even more importantly, leaving behind a highly-trained cadre of professionals, thoroughly experienced in the core of desalination process development. With this background, it was only natural that after the freeze methodology was abandoned, an intensive search for other desalination alternatives was quickly initiated. Today, Zarchin’s freeze process is still utilized by IDE Technologies for other types of applications such as efficient Ice making process for mine cooling, thermal energy storage<\/a> (TES) and ski resorts applications.<\/p>\n

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Sidney Loeb – Making RO Available for Practical Use<\/h2>\n

We can\u2019t really address the birth of Israeli desalination without paying due respect to Sidney Loeb<\/a> (1917-2008), an American-Israeli chemical engineer who quite literally revolutionized the concept of water desalination. Together with Srinivasa Sourirajan<\/a>, Loeb developed semi-permeable anisotropic membranes that became available for practical use. He started teaching RO technology at the Negev Institute in 1967, later incorporated into Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), and over the following 15 years carried out abundant research and taught desalination and membrane processes to generations of young engineers. It was at BGU that Loeb invented Pressure Retarded Osmosis<\/a> (PRO) and a unique method of producing power by a reverse electrodialysis<\/a> heat engine (RED).<\/p>\n

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The Zarchin Process – Realizing the Vision<\/h2>\n

The Zarchin Process was the first desalination technique that was developed and implemented by the “Desalination Plants Ltd” company. This process was based on the vacuum freezing vapor compression<\/a> concept (VFVC) and was implemented for seawater desalination in Eilat. Although the process is no longer used for seawater desalination today, its fundamentals and the experience gained from developing, installing and operating it – is still being applied in IDE’s ice and refrigeration applications.<\/p>\n

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Freeze! The Main Principals Behind Zarchin\u2019s VFVC<\/h2>\n

Zarchin\u2019s method for Vacuum Freezing Vapor Compression process was based on several straightforward physical principals:<\/p>\n