Objective
Shortage of fresh water has become one of the major challenges for societies all over the world. Water desalination offers an opportunity to significantly increase the freshwater supply for drinking, industrial use and irrigation. All current desalination technologies require significant electrical or thermal energy, with today's Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination units consuming electric energy of at least 3 kWh/m3 – in extensive tests about ten years ago, the Affordable Desalination Collaboration (ADC) in California measured 1.6 kWh/m3 for RO power consumption on the best commercially available membranes, and total plant energy about twice as high.
To overcome thermodynamical limitations of RO, which point to 1.09 kwh/m3 for seawater at 50 % recovery, Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) concurrently treat wastewater and generate energy to achieve desalination. MDCs can produce around 1.8 kWh of bioelectricity from the handling of 1 m3 of wastewater. Such energy can be directly used to i) totally remove the salt content in seawater without external energy input, or ii) partially reduce the salinity to lower substantially the amount of energy for a subsequent desalination treatment.
MIDES aims to develop the World’s largest demonstrator of an innovative and low-energy technology for drinking water production, using MDC technology either as stand-alone or as pre-treatment step for RO.
The project will focus on overcoming the current limitations of MDC technology such as low desalination rate, high manufacturing cost, biofouling and scaling problems on membranes, optimization of the microbial-electrochemical process, system scaling up and economic feasibility of the technology. This will be achieved via innovation in nanostructured electrodes, antifouling membranes (using nanoparticles with biocide activity), electrochemical reactor design and optimization, microbial electrochemistry and physiology expertise, and process engineering and control.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectrical engineeringelectric energy
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processesdrinking water treatment processes
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwater treatment processeswastewater treatment processes
- engineering and technologycivil engineeringwater engineeringirrigation
- engineering and technologychemical engineeringseparation technologiesdesalinationreverse osmosis
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
28016 Madrid
Spain
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Participants (12)
Legal entity other than a subcontractor which is affiliated or legally linked to a participant. The entity carries out work under the conditions laid down in the Grant Agreement, supplies goods or provides services for the action, but did not sign the Grant Agreement. A third party abides by the rules applicable to its related participant under the Grant Agreement with regard to eligibility of costs and control of expenditure.
41007 Sevilla
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5047 TK Tilburg
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28805 Alcala De Henares Madrid
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86405 Meitingen
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08225 Terrassa
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2800 Tatabanya
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
1100-312 Lisboa
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
8010 Graz
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The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
Participation ended
7609 RA Almelo
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
2611 AX Delft
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6029 Zrig Gabes
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Participation ended
10 Santiago