Patent ID: 7572352

Claim:
A method for desalinating salt-containing water, which comprises the steps of: (a) passing salt-containing water through a heat exchanger disposed in a basin containing solar-heated brine formed by several layers of water lying one above the other in the basin, each of said layers of water forming the brine having a higher salt content than the layer present there above, wherein the heat exchanger is disposed in the lowermost layer of water having a higher temperature than the temperature of the layers of water lying above the lowermost layer of water; (b) heating the salt-containing water in the basin using indirect heat exchange with the solar-heated brine to obtain heated salt-containing water; (c) evaporating at least part of the heated salt-containing water to obtain water vapor; (d) condensing the water vapor to obtain desalinated water; and (e) passing the desalinated water through a second heat exchanger disposed in a pit holding the salt-containing water to be desalinated, to pre-heat the salt-containing water in the pit by indirect heat exchange with the desalinated water, and supplying the pre-heated salt-containing water to the heat exchanger disposed in the basin according to step (a).