2024 Global Climate Challenge
Desolenator: climate resilient net-zero water
What is the name of your solution?
Desolenator: climate resilient net-zero water
Provide a one-line summary of your solution.
Solar and circular desalination: a climate resilient approach to global water security
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Maastricht, NetherlandsIn what country is your solution team headquartered?
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
What specific problem are you solving?
The UN estimates that by 2030 there will be a 40% deficit in fresh water sources. With 98% of the world’s water in our seas and oceans and 70% of the global pollution live less than 100km from the coast - desalination offers immense promise. However, today the industry is carbon intensive (water provisioning contribute 10% of global GH2 emission), polluting (trillions of litres of toxic brine dumped into oceans ever year) and cost prohibitive (prices for Seawater reverse osmosis can reach 11usd/m3).
There is also the challenge that desalination plants are centralised, requiring millions in upfront investment and only affordable for more economically developed countries such as UAE, Israel etc.
There is an immense gap with the distributed market, very much in the same way that mini grids of solar has evolved the energy grid.
What is your solution?
Desolenator is a fully integrated technology which uses optimised solar energy to sustainably produce clean water and pure salt. Our technology has many advantages as it:
1. Offers brine control The output brine can be recycled, and therefore the salinity of the output water can be controlled: to produce high salinity & low volumes of brine, or low salinity and larger volumes. Therefore, we can produce a very clean and concentrated brine, excellent for combining with ZLD.
2. Creates carbon-neutral Net-Zero water It harnesses both thermal and electrical energy for a process of optimised distillation, creating carbon-neutral water through 100% solar energy.
3. Purifies a range of complex water sources (e.g. seawater, metal contaminated, brackish). The distillation process is input water agnostic and resilient against changing characteristics of input water e.g. fluctuating salinity.
4. Produces the highest purity water This is remineralised within the system for taste (or for specific industry needs e.g. agricultural fertigation) up to <5 PPM.
5. Operates 24/7 with no solar intermittency The system captures (and stores for night-time use) both solar-generated heat and electricity.
6. Offers the Lowest LCOW (levelized cost of water) of $1/ m3 Through eliminating external energy, filters and membranes
7. Needs limited maintenance The PV-T array runs on a distilled water loop, removing any scaling & fouling in the hydrodynamic side of the PV-T array.
8. Has minimal scaling and fouling risks The top brine temperature reached in the desalination unit is only 65°C. This low temperature, plus a steady flow of seawater over the tubes, reduces the amount of scaling occurring in the MED vessel.
9. Is a distributed solution suitable for remote and coastal locations The integrated system creates water closer to the end user and disrupts the entire water supply chain (for energy and plastic)
10. Is designed to be modular to meet specific water production needs (standard unit: 250-2500 m3 /day) Each desalination module consists of multiple identical units housed within intermodal standard issued containers. Adding output capacity, therefore, is a matter of numbering up instead of scaling up as these units can be easily combined to increase the total water production as needed, allowing the system to be highly modular. Desolenator’s containerised modules are pre-commissioned and designed for rapid deployment. This saves on installation and logistics costs, reduces deployment risks and enables manufacturing at scale.
11. Uses no harmful, chemical pre- and post-treatment additives Instead it needs only a small amount of (biodegradable) antiscalant, therefore creating a clean brine and lowering opex costs.
12. Has built-in IoT functionality for real-time data on water production and Plant control The plant generates a large amount of data that can be used to monitor the plan’s performance and to make operational efficiency improvements over time.
13. Zero-Liquid Discharge module Desolenator offers the include, fully integrated ZLD module that uses and recycles the available energy to achieve ZLD at the lowest cost point and at a real directly price cubic meter $.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
Target markets:
Communities: 2.2 billion people in the world lack access to safe water. Within that figure, 70% of these people will live next to a saline water source such as the sea or a brackish aquifer.
Businesses: 252 billion dollars of assets are at risk from water (CDP)
Governments: the annual economic value of water and freshwater ecosystems is estimated to be US$58 trillion – equivalent to 60% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP)*. (WWF)
How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?
Desolenator has a highly technical team of engineers, product developers and entrepreneurs. Each community that Desolenator works with has unique characteristics. As such, the model is to partner with NGOs, community groups which are deeply embedded in the community and these organisations inform the deployment method and local business model.
Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?
Adapt cities to more extreme weather, including through climate-smart buildings, incorporating climate risk in infrastructure planning, and restoring regional ecosystems.Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?
What is your solution’s stage of development?
PilotWhy are you applying to Solve?
Development of business models for developing economies
Access to project financing and climate instruments to serve developing economies
Linkages to partners for potential distribution and licensing model
Build development ecosystem for projects
Access to NGOs and academia to support deployment
In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?
Who is the Team Lead for your solution?
Alexei Levene
What makes your solution innovative?
In contrast to RO, Desolenator:
1. is a fully integrated system capturing (and storing for night-time use) both solar-generated heat and electricity from the solar array for 24-hour operation
2. offers the lowest LCOW (levelized cost of water) by eliminating external energy, filters and membranes
3. is suitable for installation in remote areas as it needs no regular replacements of filters and membranes or chemicals
4. is input water agnostic and can purify water experiencing fluctuations or dual contamination (e.g. increased salinity alongside metal contamination) without being rendered obsolete
5. uses minimal chemicals compared to peers, and instead only needs a small amount of (biodegradable) anti-scalant, thus creating a far cleaner brine
6. has a low carbon footprint calculated at <0.01kg of CO2/L water. This is at least 100 times less CO2/L than plastic bottled water and 5 x less CO2 than RO
Describe in simple terms how and why you expect your solution to have an impact on the problem.
- net-zero water provisioning reduce overall carbon impact of water supply
- low OPEX to be able to be managed by communities themselves
- Low Levelised cost of water (1usd/m3) making it universally affordable
- modular and rapid deployment
- brine management through zero liquid discharge to enable inland desalination and desalination without harm to Marine life
What are your impact goals for your solution and how are you measuring your progress towards them?
- Litres of water sustainably produced
- CO2 mitigated
- Chemicals avoided
- Brine avoided
- Employment
Describe the core technology that powers your solution.
KEY ELEMENTS OF PROCESS PLANT
● Energy harvesting. >span class="s24">The sun’s rays are captured and converted into both electrical and thermal energy through our patented PVT panels, increasing the usable energy fourfold, whereby its efficiency is boosted from ca. 15% to 60%. As an integrated module, the PVT panels can efficiently supplement a grid connection to cover baseline process plant power requirements.
● Energy storage. Excess energy in both forms is stored to provide uninterrupted supply to the plant to overcome periodic downtimes typically expected due to daily or seasonal solar intermittency. Electrical storage is employed to balance and stabilise plant loads while decreasing grid dependency during peak demand hours. Through the use of a thermal battery, Desolenator is able to cut projected battery costs that typically constitute up to 20% of project expenses by 48.6%, enabling 24/7 water production.
● Water purification. A Multi-Effect Distillation (MED) unit with Mechanical Vapour Compression (MVC) represents the core of Desolenator’s solution and drives the purification process to produce ultra-pure water at <5 ppm. As a thermal-based approach, this type of technology offers reliable operation, requires lower maintenance when compared to other, similar approaches, and is robust in handling a wide variety of water types, a critical advantage in our globally changing climate.
Desolenator’s solution will act as a crucial waste management strategy to address these challenges to treat the brine effluent. Unlike other membrane systems, Desolenator’s solar thermal coupled ZLD unit can handle the variability and rise in feed salinities. Our integrated unit will decrease total waste volumes, bring down on-site waste management costs, reduce the plant’s overall eco-footprint (avoiding any potential seepage and potential contamination into the surrounding environment), and provide a climate-proof tool to address its water security challenges through improved in-situ strategies by enhanced liquid recovery.
Our strategy is on scale and is capable of producing up to 1000 cubic metres a day of freshwater with the possibility to recover 30 to 40 tonnes of salt a day. A proposed MED-ZLD unit with waste heat integration can even be seen to offer a competitive solution in terms of cost per cubic metre of distillate recovered when compared to conventional brine management strategies such as evaporation ponds as shown in Figure 5 below. Desolenator therefore aims to provide zero liquid discharge customers the opportunity to, not only achieve the lowest price point for ZLD, but also to offer them an integrated single solution alternative to the current non-viable combination of financially unattractive options.
Which of the following categories best describes your solution?
A new technology
How do you know that this technology works?
2 successfully executed demonstration pilots
Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:
If your solution has a website or an app, provide the links here:
Www.desolenator.com
In which countries do you currently operate?
Which, if any, additional countries will you be operating in within the next year?
How many people work on your solution team?
full time: 15
How long have you been working on your solution?
8 years
Tell us about how you ensure that your team is diverse, minimizes barriers to opportunity for staff, and provides a welcoming and inclusive environment for all team members.
Desolenator is in the process of developing a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion plan to be executed in 2024.
What is your business model?
1. Water as a Service
Summary of WaaS: The delivery of water on a per litre basis to customers through a range of commercial and legal structures. The distributor has the exclusive right to deliver such services in the Territory.
Mechanism: Leverage project financing to deliver cost competitive and sustainable water as a service to customers. Management and ownership of the asset remains with the Distributor and financial partner.
2. Licensing model
Summary: Exclusive license agreements with strategic partners
License Territories and partnerships: GCC (Kanoo), USA/LATAM (Xylem), Europe (Quaero) , APAC (TBC), India (Jackson)
License terms: Exact license terms vary by geography and partner. Each license deal
comprises of several Value Levers (set out below) which drive revenue.
Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?
Organizations (B2B)What is your plan for becoming financially sustainable, and what evidence can you provide that this plan has been successful so far?
- Raised 8 million to date
- 1.5 million in non-dilutive equity through grants
- Revenue generating since 2022
Solution Team
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Our Organization
Desolenator