The first stage of the project included a scalability study through simulation. The results of the study were aligned with the initial expectations, as reflected in RP1. At a later stage but before the construction of the plant, the simulation and its conclusions were reviewed, and a deficiency was identified. The results of the new study led to the necessity to introduce changes in the original design. The concatenation of reviews and changes finally included a change of paradigm, in which the evaporation was located inside the distillation column instead of outside it.
Meanwhile, due to the withdrawal of Menorca, third party who had to provide the construction plot, AQUA.abib was looking for a new location for the plant. AQUA.abib enjoyed the option to potentially collaborate with three companies at Sant Fruitós, Zaidín and Granada. Two of them were rejected due to the companies’ requirements, and the one with Zaidín was hibernated because AQUA.abib found the perfect place at Almería, in collaboration with IFAPA and PSA (a governmental agency and investigation centre).
In parallel with the search of a landing plot, AQUA.abib took advantage of the extra time to improve the design of the desalination plant. In relation with the new paradigm, the mechanism for harnessing the solar power was also re-designed, shifting from air to water as the main element for heat-flow.
The new paradigm had a drawback: instead of achieving a 100% evaporation of water in a single step, it generated hypersaline water, after extracting an 85% of the fresh water. In order to be able to recover the salts, it was necessary to evaporate the remaining 11%. AQUA.abib’s studies ended up with the addition to the pyramid of a complementary infrastructure a dehydration tunnel. It may be viewed as a hybrid of a traditional saline and a greenhouse.
Menorca’s withdrawal had an additional effect: the original construction project had to be dismissed and any definitive project was withheld until having a 100% security about the location of the plant. Even so, those elements of the construction project not related to the location were optimized as much as possible, which made possible to lower the construction costs over a 30% by lowering the needs for concrete and steel.
Also in parallel and thanks to its constant contact with the market, AQUA.abib pivoted from seawater desalination to the area of Zero Liquid Discharge. ZLD is the objective of no-dumping after water use. It refers to water treatment techniques that, after, for instance, using water in an industrial process, separating again water from its solutes and then setting apart water and waste and reusing the water from those same industrial processes and/or agriculture or other activities. In the are seawater desalination this mean offering SunAqua as a ZLD systema and also as the perfect complement to reverse osmosis, for the treatment of their brine. AQUA.abib maintained a constant activity of contrasting its proposal with investors and corporations of the water sector, potential clients and its presence as exhibitor in the International Water Summit, Aquatech, Asia Water, Africa Utility Week and a commercial mission to Middle East.
All those activities in the sector required constant activities of marketing, including a webpage, contents, social networks, flyers, trips, stakeholders search, follow on, market research and a constant assessment of the available information and feelings. The final result was a high value proposal, attractive for an initial extremely interesting niche: engineering firms with strong presence and interests with the public administration of Gulf Cooperation Council (mainly EAU, Saudi Arabia and Oman).
Another constant parallel activity was the search of the additional funding required for the project. AQUA.abib when present in any sort of event, always kept an eye on potential investors.
Finally, AQUA.abib organised a road trip to Middle East, the area in which SunAqua had raised the highest interest. AQUA.abib generated close to 30 strong leads and was able to arrange 15 physical meetings in a one-week trip. AQUA.abib returned to Barcelona with the commitment of 4 companies/brokers to share with us their proposals. Those companies did not live up to their commitments, generating a very strong crisis for the project. AQUA.abib decided to turn the project upside down and reduced the project to its minimum expression (even bellow the minimums set in the GA), readdressing its previous potential investors and raising the interest of new ones.
At the end, the necessary funding was not achieved and SunAqua had to be terminated due to the lack of funds.
