Project Grant DESC0013746

This $500,000 Project Grant award from the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) under CFDA 81.135 will support the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) in developing a highly energy-efficient desalination system using solar thermal energy and multi-stage distillation. The key innovation is a phase change process at the liquid-solid-vapor interface to efficiently transport and utilize energy, which aims to significantly reduce energy consumption compared to industrial...

This $250,000 National Science Foundation project grant, funded under the Engineering program (CFDA 47.041), supports the development of a solar evaporator-based, high-efficiency water desalination system. Northeastern University will work to optimize an all-in-one solar evaporator using a novel design of a planar, interconnected open-pore copper-copper oxide foam structure. This is intended to provide a cost-effective (4.5 kg/sqm/hr) desalination solution driven directly by solar irradiation. A...

This $100,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships program will support the development of passive solar desalination technology for produced water from oil and gas extraction sites. The Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station will modify existing solar evaporation ponds using hierarchical nanstructured hydrogel materials to increase evaporation rates and superhydrophobic coatings to enhance water droplet departure on glass...

This Cooperative Agreement award from the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, under the Water Desalination Research and Development Program (CFDA 15.506), aims to demonstrate a continuous pilot photobioreactor operation using sunlight to remove scaling compounds from reverse osmosis concentrate. The project team at Texas State University has developed a new photobiological process that utilizes brackish diatoms and natural sunlight to remove scalants such as silica, phosphate,...

The U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Reclamation, under its Desalination and Water Purification Research (DWPR) program (CFDA 15.506), awarded a $610,056 Cooperative Agreement to Pacifica Water Solutions LLC on Sep 21, 2023. The project aims to conduct extended field testing of innovative electrically conducting desalination membranes against commercial membranes over two consecutive 3-month trials. The testing will demonstrate the performance of this technology in two applications:...

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under CFDA 47.041 Engineering program provides $1,235,696 to Arizona State University (ASU) to develop cost- and energy-efficient brine treatment technologies that enable decarbonized brackish water desalination (BWD) for climate-adaptive water supply. The 4-year project aims to: 1) create a novel nanofiltration and reverse osmosis process to reduce brine volume; 2) design an innovative interface-enhanced crystallizer for...

The Bureau of Reclamation awarded a $396,545.92 Cooperative Agreement to the Regents of the University of Colorado on November 21, 2023 through the Water Desalination Research and Development program (CFDA 15.506). This project aims to develop scalable, robust, surface-patterned microporous membranes designed for a membrane distillation process to treat highly concentrated brines. Key objectives include: (1) developing a roll-to-roll manufacturing method for 8-inch wide surface-patterned...

E3Tecservice LLC received a $199,423 Project Grant award from the Department of Energy Office of Science on June 27, 2022 to support research on renewable ocean thermal energy for low-pressure desalination of seawater with co-production of ammonia. The award is being administered under the Office of Science Financial Assistance Program (CFDA #81.049), which supports basic research to deliver scientific discoveries and tools that transform understanding of nature and advance U.S. energy...

The National Science Foundation awarded a $256,000 Project Grant to Solmem LLC through the NSF Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships federal grant program (CFDA 47.084) to support the SBIR PHASE I: LOW-COST HIGH-EFFICIENCY SOLAR DESALINATION project. The grant, awarded April 1, 2021 with a completion date of September 30, 2022, will fund the development of products and services focused on advancing science and engineering research and innovation leading to breakthrough technologies as well as...

Colorado School of Mines was awarded a $408,664 project grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems under the NSF Engineering program (CFDA 47.041) to develop an advanced membrane distillation process for desalinating and recycling complex wastewaters. Through computational fluid dynamics modeling and bench-scale experiments, the School will work to harness buoyancy-driven instabilities to improve mixing within membrane...