Kicking off Saline Water Conversion: An Important Early Meeting

Abstract

Fifty years ago desalination had yet to make the transition from a specialty process used in rare instances to a generally recognized solution for many water resource challenges. The Office of Saline Water (OSW) had been formed in the United States, and similar institutions were being formed elsewhere. Conferences and seminars were beginning to be organized to share and expand limited knowledge of problems and opportunities. The April 1960 national meeting of the American Chemical Society featured a special symposium on saline water conversion. Twenty-one papers were presented after an introduction by OSW's W. Sherman Gillam, who chaired the event. The symposium's papers are notable, particularly those in which the authors displayed a deep understanding of desalination's underlying science and provided fruitful avenues for pursuit. In the light of 50 years of subsequent research, development, application, and service history, their projections have been validated or rejected.