DEMINERALIZATION 273 
in Europe under the O.E.E.C. (Organization for European 
Economic Cooperation), Paris, which is part of the Economic and 
Social Council of the United Nations. OEEC has established a 
Working Party No. 8 (W.P.8) on “demineralization of salt and 
brackish waters,” in which several European countries (Belgium, 
Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, 
United Kingdom) are represented. This cooperates with Australia, 
the Union of South Africa, and with the United States through the 
director of the Saline Water Conversion Program (David S. 
Jenkins) and the Rockefeller Foundation. 
Since I am chairman of Working Party No. 8, I shall give an 
outline of the actual status of that committee’s activities. 
In 1953 an ad hoc group of experts prepared a report for Work- 
ing Party No. 8 on existing methods and possibilities for further 
development from a technical and economic standpoint. On the 
basis of this report W.P.8 recommended further investigations in 
four directions, namely, distillation with vapor compression, 
electrodialysis, ion exchange, and solar energy distillation. 
Four countries, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, French 
Algeria and French Morocco proved to be willing to form a re- 
search center for one of these directions, in cooperation with 
other countries that would be willing to share the costs and profits. 
Meanwhile some of these proposals have been worked out. The 
actual situation is as follows. 
Status of Current Research 
Distillation with Vapor Compression 
This needs complicated machinery and skilled labor. Total 
costs depend largely upon fuel prices and are almost independent 
of the salinity of the raw water. Hence this process is especially 
to be recommended for the treatment of sea water and for large 
units, leading to lower investment per ton of product. 
The crucial point is the forming of deposits of calcium and 
magnesium salts in the apparatus, since periodical descaling 
causes very expensive maintenance. Incrustration can be pre- 
vented by adding special chemicals, affecting the pH, but at the 
same time corrosion under high temperature must be prevented. 
It is also possible to add dispersing agents, modifying the 
