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  • Home
  • About MIDES
    • Objectives
    • Work packages
      • WP1 Electrodes Development
      • WP2 Membrane Development
      • WP3 Microbial Desalination Cell Design
      • WP4 Work package 4: Process integration and pre-pilot validation
      • WP5 Process Simulation & Analysis
      • WP6 Pilot plant design
      • WP7 Pilot plant operation
      • WP8 Dissemination & Exploitation
      • WP9 Coordination & Management
    • Consortium
    • Gallery
  • News & Events
  • Publications
  • Contact
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Media release for MIDES
15 August 2016 In News

The MIDES consortium issued a media release to announce the project, its first deliverables and presentation to stakeholders at a conference in Spain. See the media release text and link to the PDF version below:

        Media release: MIDES Microbial Desalination (PDF link)

28 July 2016

Innovation to meet the global need for sustainable water resources

MIcrobial DESalination (MIDES) launches project to build world’s largest
demonstration of a low-energy system to produce drinking water

The MIDES project aims to revolutionise desalination by developing a more sustainable low-energy process of producing safe drinking water from seawater. This advanced technology will be exploited internationally to meet the growing need for water resources essential to environmental, economic and social development. Demonstration sites are planned in Europe, North Africa and South America.

In the MIDES system, Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) remove ions from saline water in a process powered by electroactive bacteria, without external energy input – as a pretreatment for reverse osmosis. The € 7.9 million project, co-financed by the EU Horizon 2020 programme, comprises an international consortium of 12 companies and research organisations from 8 countries, and is planned to run from 2016 – 2020. Led by FCC Aqualia, the work will start with the validation of new nanomaterials for pre-treatment, as well as the selection of new membrane and electrode configurations.

The need for innovation: Desalination of seawater with lower energy requirements is key to future water resources for growing populations in changing climate conditions. Reverse osmosis is the most widely used desalination technology, but its energy consumption is 10 times higher than conventional resources. MIDES can make desalination more sustainable with efficient electroactive bacteria to convert organic matter into electrical current to favour ion migration.

Desalination energy threshold by the European Commission call

Target desalination energy requirement Below 1 kWh/m3
Current alternative systems At least 2.5 kWh/m3
MIDES energy requirement aim Below 0.5 kWh/m3

Launched in April 2016, the MIDES project was presented in June at the International Water Association conference on Leading Edge Technologies in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain, as part of the “Sustainable Desalination” session chaired by Maria Kennedy of UNESCO-IHE. Simultaneously, the first project deliverables were completed, with specifications on cathode and configurations, and ion exchange membranes – and the project website www.midesh2020.eu is now online.

For more information on the MIDES project, contact:

Frank Rogalla, FCC Aqualia, aqualia@innovation.es

Maria Kennedy, UNESCO-IHE: m.kennedy@unesco-ihe.org

    The MIDES Consortium

Aqualia (Coordinator)        RWB water services

FUJIFILM                             SGL Group

IMDEA Water                       SimTech

LEITAT                                  UNESCO-IHE

Mikrolin                                University of Chile

Oncontrol                              University de Gabes

 

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 685793. EU

This document only reflects the author’s view, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.


Author
Matt Luna




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This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 685793.

This document only reflects the author’s view and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.