desalination

Assessing seawater safety

1 min read ·
Elevated bacterial populations in waters near beaches and urban areas could pose a problem for desalination plants.

Coal product used to create green clean water

1 min read ·
Compressed blocks of pulverized coal can be used as the basis of sunlight-powered off-grid water purification. The technology is already being progressed by commercial partners toward pilot-scale production of drinking water. Dark-colored materials that strongly soak up sunlight to drive seawater desalination are a long-standing research interest of KAUST's Andrea Fratalocchi. While reading about the economic challenges of ending coal’s use for power generation, Fratalocchi was struck by a novel possible use for coal. “The two ideas clicked together: why don’t we use coal for a new economy in

Noreddine Ghaffour

The current desalination technologies are energy-intensive compared to the thermodynamic limits, despite recent technical improvements. Furthermore, membrane technology development is hampered by low recovery and membrane (bio)fouling. My research work focuses on: i) reducing the cost and energy requirements of desalination for water supply sustainability; ii) improving the performance of the existing desalination technologies; iii) development of chemical-free membrane cleaning techniques; iv) digitalization of desalination systems for early (bio)fouling detection; and v) developing innovative energy-efficient desalination processes which could be driven by low-grade renewable energy in an integrated system.