Pedo island has its own desalination plant.
It supposedly uses sulfuric acid.
Its a good story but the timing is bad.
I know nothing about desalination plants.
Hopefully someone here does and can chime in.
yes, the day he began to be investigated he said to himself-“ I’d better go desalinate some water. A lot of water. “
Yep, makes sense.
not a big mystery ...
Grok sez:
Many desalination plants use sulfuric acid (H₂SO₄).It is commonly employed in reverse osmosis (RO) desalination processes, which dominate modern large-scale seawater and brackish water desalination.
Sulfuric acid serves several key purposes in the pretreatment stage:pH adjustment — It lowers the feed water pH (typically to around 5–7) to prevent scaling from calcium carbonate and other minerals on the RO membranes.
Enhancing coagulation — Lower pH improves the effectiveness of coagulants like ferric chloride, aiding in the removal of suspended particles and reducing the Silt Density Index (SDI) to protect membranes from fouling.
Scale control — It helps manage potential precipitation issues, sometimes in combination with antiscalants.
Industry sources describe sulfuric acid as a popular and widely used option for pH regulation in feed water, often preferred over hydrochloric acid due to lower cost and better membrane rejection of sulfate ions compared to chloride.
Some plants use alternatives (e.g., hydrochloric acid, CO₂, or advanced antiscalants to minimize or eliminate acid dosing), especially in brackish water systems where efforts have successfully reduced or removed sulfuric acid to cut costs and hazards. However, in seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) plants, sulfuric acid remains standard in many operations.
It may also appear in post-treatment for remineralization (e.g., aiding limestone dissolution to add minerals back to the permeate).Note that sulfuric acid is highly corrosive and hazardous, requiring specialized handling and materials like corrosion-resistant piping in desalination facilities.
There are niche contexts, like recovering waste heat from sulfuric acid production plants to support thermal desalination (e.g., multi-effect distillation), but that’s separate from direct use in the desalination process itself.