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Intelligent solutions for the production of environmentally-friendly power and water |
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TECHNOLOGY
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Salt Harvesting
Wherever flat land, sunshine and salty water exist in the same place solar salt harvesting is possible. It simply involves leaving salt water to evaporate and harvesting the salt. Cheetham Salt, the nation's largest salt producer, has been solar salt harvesting in Australia for more than 100 years. An Acquasol strategic partner, Cheetham controls much of the land upon which Acquasol's solar-powered desalination complex will sit. The land, located at Point Paterson just south of Port Augusta, was used for solar salt harvesting until the late 1940s. But sincethen, it's been fallow. Acquasol's desalination plant offers an opportunity to reopen the salt fields. But rather than evaporating seawater, the salt fields will evaporate brine, the hypersaline waste liquid byproduct of desalination. Twice as salty as seawater, brine is ideal feedstock for salt harvesting because the job of separating salt from water is already half done. This should lead to lower production costs. It also means brine is kept out of the ocean where it can have unknown impacts on the sensitive marine environment. Cheetham harvests about 800,000 tonnes of salt a year from 10 solar salt fields in Australia. One of those fields, the 420-hectare Cheetham Wetlands adjoining the the Point Cook Coastal Park in Victoria, enjoys Ramsar status as an internationally-important wetland of high habitat value for waterfowl. The Upper Spencer Gulf, with its bright sun and high rate of evaporation, is a perfect location for solar salt harvesting. The state's first man-made evaporating pond was developed in 1915 at Yorkey Crossing, north of Port Augusta. Most solar salt harvested in Australia is used by the chemical industry. It is also used in production of alumina from bauxite and in the glass, soap and paper manufacturing industries and is also used as a component of plastic piping.
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