ABSTRACT
The normal salinity in terms of total dissolved solids (TDS) of the seawater in the Gulf is around 44,000 ppm, whereas the salinity of seawater around the Al-Khobar/Al-Azizia Coast is extremely high, i.e., between 65,000 and 70,000 ppm (Khan and Hamad, 1996). The desali nation plant of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation at Al-Azizia utilizes MSF desalination units, which employ high-salinity feed water to produce raw water of around 2600 TDS. This water is suitable for general use. Table 1 shows an analysis of the raw water. It can be seen from the table that this water is not suitable for research purposes. To meet the requirement of research and analytical laboratories, the raw water was subjected to a three-stage purification system, as follows: producing sweet water from raw water using an RO unit; producing distilled water from sweet water using a distillation unit; and producing deionized water from distilled water by an Ultra High Quality (UHQ) deionizer.
