Alexander Zarchin (; 1897–1988) was a Ukrainian-Israeli chemist and inventor. He is most noted for inventing a process of sea

water desalination Desalination is a process that removes mineral components from saline water. More generally, desalination is the removal of salts and minerals from a substance. One example is soil desalination. This is important for agriculture. It is possible ...

."Jews of Silence." ''B'Or Ha'Torah.'' Number 1, Summer 1982.

Biography

Levi Eshkol visiting desalination plant in Eilat 1964

Born in Ukraine to a family of religious

Zionist Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

s, as a young man, Zarchin studied industrial chemistry and specialized in

metallurgy Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

. In 1934, he was arrested by the authorities for the crime of Zionism (he patented a chemical process using magnesium as "LCLA" an acronym for the phrase "''L'ma'an Tzion Lo Achsheh''" ("for the sake of Zion I won’t forget you") from the

Book of Isaiah The Book of Isaiah ( ) is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BC prophet Isaiah ben Amo ...

) and was sentenced to five years in prison. Zarchin was then recruited into the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

, and by the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he managed to reach

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, and from there he immigrated to

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

in the summer of 1947. Since his arrival and settlement in Israel, his work was in the area of sea water desalination, petroleum production from bitumen stone, wind operated generators, and other areas.

Invention of seawater desalination

In 1964, Alexander Zarchin obtained a patent for seawater desalination. Zarchin's method of sea water desalination involved freezing sea water in a vacuum, forming pure water crystals which are then melted to produce salt-free water. The salt is drained off in the vacuum stage. One of Alexander Zarchin's main contributions to the vacuum freezing vapor compression (VFVC) system was the incorporation of a compressor having a rotor with flexible unmachined blades made of thin stainless strip. In 1965, Zarchin founded

IDE Technologies IDE Technologies is an Israeli water desalination company.1897 births 1988 deaths People from Zolotonosha 20th-century Israeli inventors Soviet emigrants to Mandatory Palestine Burials at South Cemetery in Israel