Sustainable desalination in the Persian Gulf: A comprehensive environmental and economic assessment of a high-efficiency reverse osmosis system

Water supply through economically and environmentally friendly approaches, especially in areas facing a water crisis, is one of the most pressing global challenges. The present study proposes a highly efficient reverse osmosis (RO) system for desalinating Persian Gulf water and explores its environmental impacts, energy efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and operational consistency. The designed RO system significantly decreased ionic concentration (90%), total dissolved solids (99.6%), electrical conductivity (99.4%), and NaCl (>95%). The life cycle assessment was conducted by using the production of 1 m3 of potable water via RO desalination of Persian Gulf seawater as the functional unit. The highest environmental burdens appeared to be human carcinogenic toxicity (48%) and freshwater ecotoxicity (19%), mainly from Mg2+, NO3-, and Cl- releases. The RO system adversely affected human health (96.33%) and ecosystems (2.35%) because of effluent and energy consumption, whereas fossil fuels dominated the resource category. Fossil fuels supplied 93.7% of the system's energy requirements, leading to 99.8% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions, specifically CO2 (70.65%) and CH4 (10.8%). Sensitivity analysis revealed that a 20% reduction in Mg2+ and NO3- inputs alleviated impacts by 43.81% to 95.21% across all categories. Furthermore, the Monte Carlo simulation revealed a coefficient of variation 60%). The current investigation highlights the role of management strategies in mitigating the environmental impacts of RO systems.