Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/670678
May-June 2016 | Desalination & Water Reuse | 29 | RESEARCH A graphene desalination membrane research project was among six proposals from Abu Dhabi's sustainable technology-focused university, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, that each won a AED 2 million (US$ 500,000) Abu Dhabi Education Council Award for Research Excellence. One of the winning projects - led by the Institute's Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department's, Professor Linda Zou - looked into advanced materials and clean water production, the Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported. Zou's team has sought to develop a sustainable and low-cost method of making efficient desalination membranes from graphene. Dr. Behjat Al Yousuf, Interim Provost, Masdar Institute, told WAM: "Masdar Institute's thriving culture for innovation continues to result in high-impact research that is relevant to the UAE's greatest challenges. These awards from the Abu Dhabi Education Council are a recognition of this fact, and we hope that they will inspire additional innovations amongst our researchers in the future." A panel of external reviewers selected the Masdar Institute projects. Masdar Institute submitted 34 project proposals for the first cycle of the competition. The Abu Dhabi Education Council said: "This is a major achievement for Masdar Institute, given the number of proposals received, the quality of the competition and the rigorous international peer review process to which the proposals were subjected." WAM reported Masdar Institute's vice president for research, Dr Steve Griffiths, as saying: "Receiving six prestigious research awards reflects the significance and value of the [Masdar] institute's research in areas of strategic importance to Abu Dhabi, including energy, water and environmentally advanced materials." Masdar graphene study bags Abu Dhabi research prize Scientists look to batteries to cut desalination costs Researchers at the University of Illinois in the US are exploiting the technology used in rechargeable sodium ion batteries to develop what they claim could be a "new type of device [for] the desalination community". Professor of mechanical science and engineering, Kyle Smith, and graduate student, Rylan Dmello, are looking to modify the process whereby sodium and chloride ions in a sodium ion battery are driven by electric current across a membrane into one electrode compartment to leave desalinated water in the other. "We are developing a device that will use the materials in batteries to take salt out of water with the smallest amount of energy that we can," said Smith. In a press release the researchers said: "The most-used method, reverse osmosis, pushes water through a membrane that keeps out the salt, a costly and energy-intensive process. By contrast, the battery method uses electricity to draw charged salt ions out of the water." Sodium ion batteries contain salt water in two chambers - a positive electrode and a negative electrode - separated by a membrane through which the ions pass. When the battery discharges, the sodium and chloride ions - the two elements of salt - are drawn to one chamber, leaving desalinated water in the other. On charging, the ions diffuse back. The Illinois researchers looked for a way to arrest ion diffusion into the pure water. "We put a membrane that blocks sodium between the two electrodes, so we could keep it out of the side that's desalinated," said Smith. Smith and Dmello have trialled their device with saline at concentrations as high as found in seawater, and found that it could recover about 80 % of desalinated water. They are working on experiments with real seawater. Mississippi researchers win funding for low-temperature desalination Mississippi State University (MSU) is to use US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding to work on a low-cost desalination process. The MSU team plans to build on an existing low-temperature thermal desalination system developed at the school, which exploits process waste heat and solar collectors in a vacuum. The team's ambition is that its system will enable communities in rural and coastal areas to extract drinking water from seawater and brackish sources in a sustainable and affordable way. The MSU grant is one of 38 recently awarded to universities throughout the US under the EPA's People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) grant programme. The projects will compete for phase two funding in the P3 competition at the National Sustainable Design Expo this spring.