Book excerpt: The book presents chapters from world leaders on water desalination advances with respect to processes, separations materials, and energy and environmental considerations. It provides a balanced discussion of the mature and newer desalination technologies and provides a fundamental assessment of the potential of emerging approaches. Realistic assessments for the feasibility of energy extraction from salinity gradients, desalting high salinity source water, membrane distillation, capacitive deionization, are among the topics discussed. Also, among the topics discussed in the book are recent advances in the desalination application of nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes, and surface structuring of membranes.