The world's largest capacity sea water desalination plant being set up at the Kalpakkam nuclear reactor of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre would be ready for part commissioning next month, BARC Director, B Bhattacharjee, said in Kokkata. The demonstration scale plant would employ the multistage flash reverse osmosis technique to provide 6300 cubic metre of desalted water daily -- enough to meet the dual needs of the nuclear power plant and drinking water for the neighbouring locality, Bhattacharjee told a national conference on desalination and membrane-based technologies for drinking water.
The plant, to harness sea water from the adjoining south eastern coast, would be coupled to the nuclear reactor's 170 mega watt PHWR station to produce safe and economic fresh water from sea utilising indigenous technology, he said. "The plant is in the advanced stage of construction and is scheduled for part commissioning by March 2002 and full commissioning by mid-2003," Bhattacharjee said.
A larger capacity plant coupled to a fast breeder reactor was earlier operated in former Soviet Union at Aktau but has now been closed down.
Some other plants operating in Japan were also coupled to nuclear power plants but they were of small capacity and catered to needs of the process water requirements of the station only, he said. Bureau Report