The challenge for many communities in Latin America is to find adequate solutions which are feasible given the local economic and technical conditions and which enable them to source water with arsenic concentrations below the WHO guideline value for drinking water (<10 μg/L) of arsenic (As) pollution, suitable for human consumption and the irrigation of crops. Three regions where geothermal fields are present were selected for study out of the several hundred locations in Latin America where the water environment is contaminated with As and where there is a critical water shortage problem. These are Cerro Prieto in Mexico, Momotombo in Nicaragua and Lake Poopó in Bolivia. The paper presents the results of research on the use of low-enthalpy geothermal energy sources and waste heat from geothermal power plants in membrane distillation (MD) processes, which is the only heat-powered membrane technology, in order to obtain potable water and/or water for crop irrigation. It was concluded that MD could be considered as a solution for obtaining water of good quality with a high retention of toxic solutes such as As as well as other different species found in groundwater. In addition, it is not only geothermal energy, but also the geothermal water itself that can be considered as a source of freshwater produced through the MD process, a process which is most suitable to be used in areas where cheap sources of heat are available.
Keywords: Arsenic; Fresh water; Geothermal heat; Latin America; Membrane distillation.
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