Desalination @ 1/10 Power, 1/2 Cost wins MIT competition

[h20man]

Interesting news of a new way of getting drinking water from the winner of an MIT 100K USD competition:
(their first target market is sailors)... https://www.nona-technologies.com/



<QUOTE>
Solar-powered desalination device wins MIT $100K competition



Nona Desalination is developing a compact water-desalination device that requires less electricity than a cell phone charger.

Zach Winn | MIT News Office
Publication Date:
May 16, 2022
The winner of this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is commercializing a new water desalination technology.
Nona Desalination says it has developed a device capable of producing enough drinking water for 10 people at half the cost and with 1/10th the power of other water desalination devices. The device is roughly the size and weight of a case of bottled water and is powered by a small solar panel.
“Our mission is to make portable desalination sustainable and easy,” said Nona CEO and MIT MBA candidate Bruce Crawford in the winning pitch, delivered to an audience in the Kresge Auditorium and online.
The traditional approach for water desalination relies on a power-intensive process called reverse osmosis. In contrast, Nona uses a technology developed in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics that removes salt and bacteria from seawater using an electrical current.
“Because we can do all this at super low pressure, we don’t need the high-pressure pump [used in reverse osmosis], so we don’t need a lot of electricity,” says Crawford, who co-founded the company with MIT Research Scientist Junghyo Yoon. “Our device runs on less power than a cell phone charger.”
The founders cited problems like tropical storms, drought, and infrastructure crises like the one in Flint, Michigan, to underscore that clean water access is not just a problem in developing countries. In Houston, after Hurricane Harvey caused catastrophic flooding in 2017, some residents were advised not to drink their tap water for months.
The company has already developed a small prototype that produces clean drinking water. With its winnings, Nona will build more prototypes to give to early customers.
The company plans to sell its first units to sailors before moving into the emergency preparedness space in the U.S., which it estimates to be a $5 billion industry. From there, it hopes to scale globally to help with disaster relief. The technology could also possibly be used for hydrogen production, oil and gas separation, and more.

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Disclaimer: I AM IN NO WAY ASSOCIATED with this company.......

[Franziska]

Wow. If this really works it will be a big gamechanger.
Hope that production costs are low too...

[Stephen_MO]

[QUOTE=h20man;3625569]Interesting news of a new way of getting drinking water from the winner of an MIT 100K USD competition:
(their first target market is sailors)... https://www.nona-technologies.com/

Their prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 liters per hour, and requires only 20 watt-hours per liter.

[sailorboy1]

[QUOTE=Stephen_MO;3625672]

Originally Posted by h20man

Their prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 liters per hour, and requires only 20 watt-hours per liter.

but that is terrible!

to make 35 gal that would take 132 hours, 2,650 watts

my regular AC powered watermaker will do the same 35 gal in 1 hour for 1040 watts

[markcouz]

It seems closer to 400hr for 35gal, hardly enough to keep ice in my whisky!

[waterman46]

[QUOTE=Stephen_MO;3625672]

Originally Posted by h20man

Interesting news of a new way of getting drinking water from the winner of an MIT 100K USD competition:
(their first target market is sailors)... https://www.nona-technologies.com/

Their prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 liters per hour, and requires only 20 watt-hours per liter.

Are you sure of these numbers? So for us to compare with existing reverse osmosis units, that 20 watt-hours at 12 volts would be 1.7A for each hour of use, to make 1 liter (0.264 gallons) per hour. Scaling it up to compare to units we are more familiar with, that would be 64Amps at 12V for one hour to make 10 gallons.

So if the 20AH/liter is correct, existing reverse osmosis units are about 4x more efficient than this new one.

[AKA-None]

Well to be fair if it can run off a small solar panel then it’s a winner even if it’s slow and uses more power
So depends on what is considered small and if it’s self contained

[StuM]

Originally Posted by sailorboy1

but that is terrible!

to make 35 gal that would take 132 396 hours, 2,650 watts hours

my regular AC powered watermaker will do the same 35 gal in 1 hour for 1040 watts hours

Sigh!


If it took 132 hours, it would draw 20 Watts continuously. Taking 396 hours would take 6.6 watts continuously.

[waterman46]

Originally Posted by AKA-None

Well to be fair if it can run off a small solar panel then it’s a winner even if it’s slow and uses more power
So depends on what is considered small and if it’s self contained

It appears to be self-contained. It would be enough to keep 2 or 3 people alive in a liferaft, and is very portable and simple to use. Probably easier to use than the hand operated desalination units that required a lot of muscular effort to make enough water to drink. But if the sun don't shine . . .

It's definitely not a winner when scaled up to useful proportions for a cruising boat, since it's very inefficient. With the same scaled-up size solar panels connected to a RO unit, you'd make more than twice as much water.

[Ivansgarage]

can someone tell me, what is drinking water? 10-PPM, 1000-PPM
the water in Tucson, Az is over 1000-PPM I have always see most RO plants on a boat
seem to produce about 200 PPM water, from sea water..

[seandepagnier]

20 watts per liter is not a lot of power for a few solar panels when you need only a few liters per day. Generally have plenty of water from rainfall and storage, but this could eliminate issues in dry seasons and offer independence.

water makers are not really viable by comparison:
1) expensive parts you cannot produce or repair
2) must be used all the time or pickled ?
3) cannot use in harbors (polluted water ?)
4) loud noises
5) physically heavy

Another solution from MIT :
https://news.mit.edu/2020/passive-so...alination-0207

[PippaB]

This has been discussed here on CF before: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3614936

20 Watt*hours per liter is actually a ton of energy for desalination. A Spectra uses less than 4Wh/liter. The PowerSurvivor 40 comes in at about 8Wh/liter and can readily be run from a 75W solar panel. I respect MIT, but if their press department can’t do the basic math and background research.... Instead of 1/10 the power this unit takes 5x existing technology. Possibly, and only possibly, you might be able to make a smaller unit than with the other technologies, but that remains to be seen. Even if the unit is smaller you’re still looking at 5x the solar panel area for the amount of water produced.

[seandepagnier]

Originally Posted by PippaB

This has been discussed here on CF before: https://www.cruisersforum.com/forums...ml#post3614936

20 Watt*hours per liter is actually a ton of energy for desalination. A Spectra uses less than 4Wh/liter. The PowerSurvivor 40 comes in at about 8Wh/liter and can readily be run from a 75W solar panel. I respect MIT, but if their press department can’t do the basic math and background research.... Instead of 1/10 the power this unit takes 5x existing technology.

Did you include the energy to produce RO water maker? Do you consider that running for a few minutes produces no water because it has to flush itself with fresh water? It is difficult to find a reliable affordable watermaker that produces only a few gallons a day.

Possibly, and only possibly, you might be able to make a smaller unit than with the other technologies, but that remains to be seen. Even if the unit is smaller you’re still looking at 5x the solar panel area for the amount of water produced.

maybe irrelevant if you need 3-4 liters of water a day, this is a small solar area.

[PippaB]

Energy inefficiency is never irrelevant in this day and age. I’m all for a simpler technology (there is no evidence that this is, yet, at production scale), but there certainly is evidence already that it is grossly energy inefficient.

As for the energy to produce the RO unit, how much energy is required to produce the 24 units of this device to match the water production of the RO unit?

[mlydon]

You’re missing one of the most important parts of the story - the unit does NOT use RO - so all those issues with pickling, filter changes, backflushing etc, go away. Something like this you could keep in a locker till needed for an emergency. It was also able to knock out pollutants that would gunk up an RO filter in short order.

There’s also economy of scale to consider. The unit seemed to have a fairly complex control circuitry, and a pump to move water. Doubling throughput likely wouldn’t double power consumption.

Worth keeping an eye on, I think….

At