The Israel Government has granted a 150,000 pound contract for the building of a pilot plant for desalting water and using the fresh water for irrigation of the Negev, the Jerusalem press reported today from Tel Aviv.
The contract has been awarded Alexander Zarchin, 59-year-old engineer who fled a Soviet forced labor camp in 1947. Mr. Zarchin worked out the process for the Soviet Union years ago and in 1931 registered the patent in the USSR. The Soviet Union used it in Turkestan desert areas for its military installations and has guarded the process as a military secret. Before he was sent to the labor camp, Mr. Zarch in worked out and registered a score of different patents.
The process which he will develop for Israel involves the freezing of salt water, with a crystallization of the water away from the foreign minerals and salts in it. A by-product of water desalting would be the production of various chemical salts. Mr. Zarchin, who sees his process as a substitution for piping water to the Negev from the Jordan River, estimates that it will take two to three years to build a plant large enough to produce 350,000,000 cubic feet of water annually. The pilot plant should be ready in six months.
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