Water. Desalination + reuse
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/983801
Researchers review work so far The research paper, 'Membrane distillation at the water-energy nexus: limits, opportunities, challenges', explores the potential for membrane distillation (MD) to desalinate high-salinity waters using low-grade or waste heat. In it, the authors compare MD to established desalination technologies, including reverse osmosis and multi- eff ect distillation, and discuss the potential of promising new process designs, such as nanotechnology-enabled solar membrane distillation. The project was facilitated by the US National Science Foundation's Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Research Centre. The goal was to review critically the desalination performance of MD and to understand the key challenges to improving performance. The paper was published by the Royal Society of Chemistry's Energy & Environmental Science journal, and its authors are Akshay Deshmukh, Chanhee Boo, Vasiliki Karanikola, Shihong Lin, Anthony Straub, Tiezheng Tong, David Warsinger, and Menachem Elimelech. prevention, sensors, source water quality, taste and odour control, water conservation, water quality, and water supply. The deadline is 27 June 2018. For more information please visit li link.werf.org Key questions • Is membrane distillation (MD) an energy effi cient process? • How can membrane and system design improve MD performance? • Will fouling, scaling and wetting hinder MD? • Where does MD outperform other desalination technologies? Water. desalination + reuse June 2018 Far Site 27 • One of my earliest conversations with The Research Council (TRC), Oman, a er becoming MEDRC centre director four years ago, was to discuss the potential of taking existing desalination technologies, miniaturising them, taking them o• -grid, and making them a• ordable. The Oman Humanitarian Desalination Challenge is a result of those conversations, and is an attempt to focus the transformative potential of desalination technologies on wider humanitarian and development needs. Since that time, MEDRC has expanded fourfold, and although it has been extremely busy and easy to be distracted, the core idea of a humanitarian challenge stuck. MEDRC has worked with TRC to bring the challenge to fruition. In 2018, with support from The Sultan Qaboos Higher Centre for Culture and Science, we have launched. • The initiative will provide a $700,000 prize to the team or individual able to deliver a hand-held, standalone, and low cost desalination device that is suitable for short-term use and rapid deployment following a humanitarian crisis. The winning device will have the potential to be a game-changer in humanitarian crisis response situations. Additionally, the technological innovation that will be necessary in order to win is likely to drive other far-reaching change within the water sector by signiŒ cantly reducing environmental impacts, particularly energy consumption; and by pushing the use of renewable energy sources further into the mainstream. • We want to be as open and inclusive as possible, and we encourage all of the industry, engineering teams and individuals at all scales, as well as academic research centres, to enter. In that spirit, the major qualiŒ cation for competitors will be their acceptance of the requirements and the rules and regulations of the competition. The full details of qualiŒ cation process are currently being formulated. • We want a working prototype that can meet the selection criteria. The focus is on concrete delivery. We also require a video of the device in operation, along with a written narrative of how it meets the selection criteria. This information will be used by MEDRC to determine if the device will be invited for testing in our laboratories. Testing of invited desalination devices will be carried out by MEDRC personnel in our laboratories in Muscat, Oman." • More details will be available when the rules and regulations are Œ nalised. Currently, we expect to have three well-known experts review the performance of each invited device against the selection criteria. If no device meets the criteria in the 2019 review, the competition will re-open each year through 2022, or until a winner is announced. Q & A C I A R Á N Ó C U I N N "We are seeking a game-changing desalina- tion technology for use in crisis situations" Ciarán Ó Cuinn is centre director of Middle East Desalination Research Centre (MEDRC), Oman What will the winning technology look like? Who qualifi es to enter the challenge? What will entrants be asked to submit? How will the judging process be organised ? Where did the idea for the challenge begin? Q & A C I A R Á N Ó C U I N N "We are seeking a game-changing desalina- tion technology for use in crisis situations"