Saudi gigaproject developer Neom and French utility developer Engie have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to test and establish pilot installations for developing desalination brine management practices.

Brine is highly saline water derived from converting seawater into potable water in the desalination process. It is usually discharged back into the sea in a controlled manner to limit its impact on marine life.

“This cross-border partnership addresses a key component of water sustainability in arid regions and extracting value from waste,” Engie said in a statement.

The firm added that the partnership will “harness advanced technologies”, including advanced membrane solutions and crystallisation systems, to explore the potential for valuable resource recovery from seawater brine by-products.

This development comes a year after Neom cancelled the joint development agreement (JDA) for a project to develop a zero liquid discharge plant in Neom.

A consortium of Neom subsidiary Enowa, Japan’s Itochu and France’s Veolia signed a JDA for the scheme in December 2022, approximately six months after they signed an MoU to develop the renewable-energy powered advanced seawater reverse osmosis project in Oxagon, Neom’s industrial cluster.

The scope of the JDA covered the project’s first phase with a desalination plant that would have produced 500,000 cubic metres a day (cm/d) of desalinated water by 2030.

Advanced technology

In addition to using 100% renewable energy, the proposed state-of-the-art desalination plant intended to use advanced membrane technology to produce separate brine streams, enabling the production of brine-derived products to be developed and monetised downstream.

The plan involved converting brine, the main waste output of desalination, into industrial materials to be used locally or exported internationally.

At the time, Enowa said brine generated from the desalination plant would be treated to feed industries utilising high-purity industrial salt, bromine, boron, potassium, gypsum, magnesium and rare metal feedstocks.

Neom appointed Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation as financial adviser for the project. UK-based DLA Piperwas the legal adviser and Canada’s WSP was the technical adviser.