Desalination plant supporting the Italsider plant in Taranto

Construction:

• Technology and design: Italimpianti (now Fisia Italimpianti), with proprietary expertise.
• Plant construction and integration: construction and assembly of the desalination units and auxiliary systems supporting the steel plant.

Production capacity:

• Unit capacity: 125 m³/hour of high-purity distilled water.
• Total site production: 10,000 m³/day, including the plant in question and three previously installed units.
• Product quality: distilled water with residual salinity less than 1 ppm

Technology used

Multi-flash thermal desalination (MSF): The plant uses a multi-flash thermal distillation process with long-flow geometry, designed to ensure high reliability and operational continuity. The system produces a distillate of extremely high purity, suitable for the steel plant's process consumption, which requires stringent quality requirements.

The process efficiency is 5.5 kg of distillate per kg of heating steam, a significant value for the time it was built.

Auxiliary systems and water treatment: The plant is equipped with auxiliary units dedicated to dosing the acid and additives needed to decarbonize the feedwater, ensuring optimal operating conditions and the stability of the distillation process.

Technological advantages and historical significance: The Taranto desalination plant is the first of its kind built by Italimpianti, marking the company's entry into the industrial desalination sector. The project made a strategic contribution to the safety of the Italsider plant's water supply, ensuring the availability of high-purity water for production processes.

Subsequent developments: For the same Italsider plant in Taranto, an additional desalination unit with a capacity of 250 m³/hour was subsequently built, which entered into service in 1980, confirming the technical and operational validity of the solutions adopted.