Does it take a lot of work to remove all of the tiny stuff from seawater?
Yes, this is why
it requires pre-treatment.
Some plants place wells on the beach where the sand acts like a filter to clean the water before the desalination process; this makes the water very clean. In other plants, the water may be more polluted by humans, which requires more pre-treatment.
step three
pre-treat it
This is done by using a filter to catch particles and sometimes by adding chemicals that make the particles heavier so that they stick together and drop to the bottom. The salt water is then pushed through a finer filter, similar to the one in a coffee machine. Often called a cartridge filter, it protects the membrane, the layer of material that separates the salt water from the clean water, by removing anything else that might clog it.
