LAUSR

Abstract Membrane Capacitive Deionization (mCDI) desalination is an emerging technology that can, potentially, be scaled to an appropriate capacity and powered by photovoltaics for farm applications where costs of electrical power provision are prohibitive. In order to assess the critical influences of location and mCDI configuration on profitability, a farm scale economic model was developed to calculate annualized profits, internal rate of return, return period and bore salinity thresholds for farm profitability with mCDI desalination for a 10-year investment period for various crops at selected locations in south eastern Australia with known groundwater quality issues. Results show that the cost of water supply including bore drilling and pumping, mCDI desalination, photovoltaics, brine disposal and water storage is less than AU$1/m3 for typical field applications with salinity removals