Optimization of water treatment and desalination processes

Sustainable water management is a major challenge of the 21st century, faced with population growth, industrialization, and climate change. Wastewater reuse and desalination are emerging as strategic solutions. This book explores the optimization of water treatment and desalination processes, integrating renewable energies and the valorization of industrial by-products. Rigorous protocols have been developed for the sampling and characterization of wastewater and seawater, using adsorbents such as fly ash, bottom ash, and coastal sands. Processes include infiltration-percolation, coagulation with ferric chloride, disinfection with trichloroisocyanuric acid, and solar distillation. Impedance spectroscopy was used to analyze the interactions between adsorbents and contaminants, optimizing treatment efficiency. The results confirm the effectiveness of ash as an adsorbent and show that industrial sludge can partially replace cement in mortars by up to 20%, while maintaining acceptable mechanical and thermophysical performance.