Water Scarcity
nanoparticles infused into a porous polymer. The light-
capturing nanoparticles heated the entire surface of
the membrane when exposed to sunlight. A thin half-
millimeter-thick layer of salt water flowed atop the carbon-
black layer, and a cool freshwater stream flowed below.
Li, the leader of NEWT’s advanced treatment test beds
at Rice, said the water production rate increased greatly
by concentrating the sunlight. “The intensity got up 17.5
kilowatts per meter squared when a lens was used to
concentrate sunlight by 25 times, and the water production
increased to about 6 liters per meter squared per hour.”
Li said NEWT’s research team has already made a much
larger system that contains a panel that is about 70
centimeters by 25 centimeters. Ultimately, she said, NEWT
hopes to produce a modular system where users could
order as many panels as they needed based on their daily
water demands.
“You could assemble these together, just as you would the
panels in a solar farm,” she said. “Depending on the water
production rate you need, you could calculate how much
membrane area you would need. For example, if you need
20 liters per hour, and the panels produce 6 liters per hour
per square meter, you would order a little over 3 square
meters of panels.”
Established by the National Science Foundation in 2015,
NEWT aims to develop compact, mobile, off-grid water-
treatment systems that can provide clean water to millions
of people who lack it and make U.S. energy production
more sustainable and cost-effective. NEWT, which is
expected to leverage more than $40 million in federal and
industrial support over the next decade, is the first NSF
Engineering Research Center (ERC) in Houston and only
the third in Texas since NSF began the ERC program in
1985. NEWT focuses on applications for humanitarian
emergency response, rural water systems and wastewater
treatment and reuse at remote sites, including both
onshore and offshore drilling platforms for oil and gas
exploration.
Source: Rice University
Namibia’s desal ambitions are aired again
Swakopmund, capital city of Erongo region, is among the localities that faced water shortages during three years of drought
Officials in Namibia’s Erongo region have again spoken
of their ambition to acquire a local desal facility owned by
French firm Areva, as they repeat aims to build a second
desal plant.
Erongo has suffered serious droug ht over the past three
years, putting local aquifers under pressure and driving the
need for an integrated water management plan to support
local farmers, industry and domestic consumers.
The new Erongo Water Forum, created in 2016, aims
to establish a water utility to serve the region. In his
annual public address on Thursday 22 June 2017, regional
governor Cleophas Mutjavikua said: “At one or another
stage we might be without water,” adding “the aim of the
forum is to ensure that we are not running dry.”
As well as ambitions to buy the Areva plant, a dispute
over whose asking price has been ongoing, Erongo has
signalled that it wants to build a 70,000 m3/d capacity
additional desal facility. In November 2016, Namibia’s
Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry revealed that
it was seeking funds for a feasibility study for the new
plant from German state-owned KfW Development Bank.
In July 2016, Namibian finance director Calle Schlettwein
voiced his ambition to attract private investment for four
desalination plants nationwide in the mid to long-term.
Source: desalination.biz
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