Arash Khosravi

Although emerging water desalination technologies such as hybrid technologies and zero liquid discharge (ZLD) are needed to deal with water scarcity, their impacts on the environment, resources, and human health, as the main criteria of sustainability, should be evaluated to make policy for the development of new technologies. In the present study, all types of desalination technologies were identified and investigated, and selected technologies were designed based on the characteristics of each technology and the operational conditions of the case study. In addition, several hybrid and ZLD processes were designed. Moreover, operational data of energy flows, chemicals, and building materials were determined using simulation and engineering calculations. In the following, the environmental footprints of 10 operational and emerging desalination systems which are suitable to operate in Persian Gulf region, especially in Bushehr province, have been analyzed using life cycle assessment (LCA) as an effective tool for policy making and picking sustainable technologies. This comparison is based on recovery rate, climate change, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity impacts. The results showed that the use of a crystallizer system can be a very effective option to increase the recovery rate and also achieve the ZLD strategy. It was also observed that membrane distillation is a suitable option for implementation in hybrid processes and achieving the goals of minimal liquid discharge (MLD) or ZLD. It was observed that the highest recovery rate is related to the RO-MD-BCr scenario with a rate of 99.97%. In general, in the climate change index, RO-MD, RO-MD-BCr, RO-RO-BCr, and NF-RO-BCr scenarios showed the least amount of emissions. In the eutrophication impact, scenarios integrated with crystallizer and solar evaporation pond have the least amount of pollution. Moreover, RO, RO-RO, NF-RO, and RO-RO-Solar pond scenarios have the least amount in the ecotoxicity index. In addition, the