Zarchin, Alexander

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ZARCHIN, ALEXANDER

ZARCHIN, ALEXANDER (1897–1988), Israeli engineer and inventor. Zarchin was born in Zolotonosha in the Ukraine. After graduating from the Leningrad Technical Institute, he was a member of its staff until 1934. He was imprisoned for a time in a labor camp. He took out patents for evaporative drying, distillation, separation of oxygen from air, and, more importantly, for a freezing process for desalination of water. Zarchin went to Palestine in 1947. His desalination process was developed in Israel and used experimentally to supply water to the town of Eilat.

bibliography:

Desalination Plants Ltd., Desalination Plants Ltd: Developers of Zarchin Process (1962); Tidhar, 14 (1965), 4518–20.

[Samuel Aaron Miller]