Grantee Research Project Results
Innovative Water Desalination System for Small Communities
EPA Contract Number: EPD17038Title: Innovative Water Desalination System for Small Communities
Investigators: Srinivas, Girish
Small Business: TDA Research Inc.
EPA Contact: Richards, April
Phase: I
Project Period: September 1, 2017 through February 28, 2018
Project Amount: $100,000
RFA: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) - Phase I (2017) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) , SBIR - Water
Description:
In many parts of the country groundwater withdrawals exceed recharge rates and this has caused groundwater-level declines, reductions to the volume of groundwater in storage, lower streamflow and lake levels. Development of brackish groundwater and seawater as an alternative water sources can help address concerns about the future availability of water. Thus, there is a need for a technology that produces high yields of clean water that: 1) can desalinate brackish water (which is actually plentiful throughout the US) and seawater, 2) has a low operating cost, 3) that is scalable from producing up to 1,000,000 gallons per day of potable the can meet the need of small communities.
To address this problem, TDA will develop thermally regenerable sorbents. The advantages of thermally regenerable sorbents are: 1) they do not require high pressures (like reverse osmosis (RO)), 2) no additional chemicals are needed for regeneration (unlike conventional ion exchange), and 3) they require much less energy than distillation because the sorbent removes soluble ions (the minor components), rather separating the major component (water). In this project we propose to make new, more robust resins, specifically for thermal desalination and thereby develop a process that is less expensive than RO.
Progress and Final Reports:
The perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.