A Disruptively Novel Approach to Clean and Safe Water Supply to Off-Grid Communities – SAFEWater-SDCW

Project Information

SAFEWater-SDCW

Grant agreement ID: 190157957

DOI

10.3030/190157957

Project closed

EC signature date 5 March 2023

Start date 1 April 2023

End date 31 March 2026

Funded under

• The European Innovation Council (EIC)

Total cost

€ 2 198 722,50

EU contribution

€ 1 539 105,75

Coordinated by

SOLAR DEW CLEAN WATER BV
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SAFEWater-SDCW (A Disruptively Novel Approach to Clean and Safe Water Supply to Off-Grid Communities – SAFEWater-SDCW)

Reporting period: 2023-04-01 to 2024-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SolarDew aims to provide 1 million people with clean drinking water by 2030 via the commercialisation of a disruptive, point of use water purification & desalination technology for off-grid communities, co-financed by the EIC Accelerator Programme and the Innovation Council. By the end of the project, the innovative technology will reach TRL 8, demonstrating the following characteristics:

1. Produce high quality drinking water from biologically, chemically contaminated, brackish or saline sources.
2. Decreasing water price, as scale increases.
3. Low maintenance need, thanks to a proprietary membrane with high fouling resistance.
4. Allowing individual/community production of clean drinking water.

By 2030, with scaling of the technology, SolarDew will address the Green Deal Objectives as well as SDGs: 1, 6, 11 and 12, by reducing:
1. households’ expenditure on drinking water by up to 70%, for communities living in rural and coastal areas.
2. child mortality, resulting from waterborne diseases and long-term effects of chemical contaminants.
3. CO2 emissions, averaging 13,500 tons/year.
4. plastic waste by up to 40 million bottles/year.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During Period 1 of the project, the water purification bag was redesigned to increase its size by 15x. SolarDew also developed a roll to roll production process, making the product suitable for scaling up. The supply chain has been set up with multiple partners to prepare for large-scale production. Intermediary pilots have been prepared in collaboration with SEA Group for Chile and University of Crete and Dedisa for Greece. Partnerships and community building is in process to prepare the basis for commercialisation in the 2 markets.

In addition, a patent was filed with the Dutch Bureau of Intellectual Property for the design of the water purification bag and the hydraulic system.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The following R&D efforts go beyond the state-of-art:
1. The roll to roll manufacturing of the water purification bag with a complexity and size previously not achieved in the industry
2. The development of a connector system with optimised functionalities in a design that is simple to manufacture and assemble.
3. The overall hydraulic design of the water purification bag, allowing the system to operate under very low pressures (gravity flow only)
4. The translation of the whole design to be optimised for manufacturing.


The next steps for SolarDew are:
1. To fully translate the production steps to a full-scale industrialised manufacturing process with a specialised manufacturing partner.
2. To evaluate the water purification bag in the intermediate pilots in Greece and Chile and receive feedback for further optimisation of the design for the 0 series prior to industrial manufacturing.
3. To further demonstrate the technology with other launching customers for which SolarDew would be interested to connect with customers in government, industry or NGOs, interested to become a partner in SolarDew’s Ambassador program for their country.

Rendering of SolarDew Water Station

SolarDew single module of the technology