Sustainable Water
Speeding up relief, recovery and reconstruction in post-war Gaza
23rd-24th of February 2015, Cairo, Egypt
The water issue
✤
Drinking water is polluted
✤
Less water per person than the WHO standard
✤
Drained aquifers contaminated by sea water
✤
Sewers destroyed
✤
Water supply network destroyed
✤
Sea water is polluted (Nitrates - Bacteria - White Phosphorous chemicals)
Problems to be assessed
✤
Pollution: different areas are contaminated with
different pollutants
✤
Massive desalination has terrible impact on flora and
fauna
✤
Water supply network unreliable
✤
Water treatment and water desalination require
energy
Possible solutions: beneficiaries
✤
Essential to differentiate targets by size and
consumption:
✤
Big demographic groups
✤
Private or public buildings (100 people)
✤
Individuals (families)
Single Big Desalinator Plant?
✤
Actual technology relies on reverse osmosis (filtering membranes,
high pressures)
✤
Massive Energy Consumption: Need for a large scale Oil Based
Generator (~15% of the current power demand)
✤
Relies on Oil coming from neighbouring countries: water provision in the
Gaza Strip completely dependent on neighbouring countries
✤
Failure of the Single Plant implies a failure of the whole water
distribution
✤
Necessary to re-build the whole water supply network
Sustainable alternative: many
smaller desalinators
✤
Desalination on smaller scales; many smaller desalinators
lower the consumption per plant
✤
Lower energy consumption, lower pressures by using
innovative technologies (graphene, blue energy, hygroscopic
salt)
✤
No need to rebuild the whole water supply network in one go
✤
Distributing the water production on the ground: the failure
of one plant does not influence the whole strip
Beyond Reverse Osmosis
Filtering water at a molecular level
✤
Reverse Osmosis Plants have a high energy
consumption
✤
New technologies and materials can be used to lower
the energy consumption and to clear water from
various pollutants
✤
Desalination can be combined to waste water
recycling: recover energy and minimise pollution
(blue energy and graphene membranes)
Mixing brine and waste water to
gain energy
Blue Energy: by mixing sweet and salty water there is a flow of salt. ✤
Salty
Sweet
Mixing
Mixed
✤
Salt is ionic (charged). From the flow of ions electricity can be
recovered
✤
Separating salt water from fresh water, using a membrane that only
allows positively or negatively charged particles to permeate,
results in a difference in voltage which you can convert into
electricity
Blue Energy in the Netherlands
✤
Plant on the mouth of the river
Rhine: joining of river and sea
water used to generate
sustainable energy
✤
Plant location in Afsluitdijk
Graphene
✤
Graphene is an optimal
material to filter salt from
water (MIT research)
✤
Graphene is a sturdy material:
nanoscale holes can be made in
it and they can be chemically
active
✤
It can filter salt and other
pollutants
Graphene membranes vs
Traditional Reverse Osmosis
✤
Graphene Membranes have a Permeability that is three orders of
magnitude higher than Reverse Osmosis Membranes (SWRO)*
3
✤
Threefold increase in the flux of a 100,000 m /d SWRO plant is
shown to result in a 15% reduction in specific energy consumption*
✤
Already commercialised:
Lockheed Martin: graphene desalination plant 2013 (perforene™)
Malaysian Graphene Nanochem: graphene-enhanced water
treatment system for the oil and gas industry
* Cohen-Tanugi, et al., Energy & Environmental Science, 4 February 2014
Combining Graphene and Blue
Energy
✤
Using new materials and novel technologies allows to reduce
the energy consumptions
✤
Plants can be thought and designed such that they are mainly
powered by renewable energies (Photovoltaic and Blue Energy)
✤
Using Blue Energy by mixing brine and filtered waste water
reduces the ecologic impact of the desalination plant
✤
Plants independent from oil based generators are more likely to
be independent from external aids
Harvesting Water from Air
How?
Water in the ubiquitous air condenses on
a cold surface
✤
How to cool a surface?
Using electricity from the grid
Using Solar Power
Using a Cold Source (sea water
or ground)
Different solutions according to
target size and consumption
Hygroscopic Salt: solution for a
building
✤
Using deliquescence, the
process by which water is
attracted from the atmosphere
by a hygroscopic salt
✤
Evaporate and recondense the
harvested water regenerating
the salt
✤
Commercialised by
Acquasciences
Self-made
systems?
Alternative Parts and possible elements
available on site /
Do-it-yourself
Kristof Retezár
Bojan Masirevic
Exploded View
Solar panel set
Easy to remove
Dust Filter
Fan
Tube
Condensation surface
Cooler, pipe system
Peltier cooler, etc.
✤
Small scale solutions are
possible
✤
Systems can be build with
recycled material
Pump
Battery
Water tank / plastic container
Hole for fan
Screw
✤
✤
Enough for a family
consumption
Completely Photovoltaic
Fan
Fan
Water container
Frame
Summarising
✤
Small plants and new technologies can help to ease
the water shortage problem in the Gaza Strip
✤
Solutions can be tailored to size and needs of the
beneficiary group
✤
Small-scale, self-made water condensers can be
assembled with locally available materials
Collaborations
✤
University of Vienna, Austria
✤
Università di Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy
✤
Universiteit Utrecht, Netherlands
✤
Fontus
Kristof Retezár
Bojan Masirevic
Sunshine4Palestine: who are we
Dr. Barbara Capone
CEO and Project Leader
Ph.D Physics (Cambridge, UK)
Fellow Austrian Academy of Sciences
Dr. Emanuela Bianchi
Technical Consultant
PhD Physics (Rome, Italy)
Researcher FWF, Vienna
Eng. Dr. Peter van Oostrum
Eng. Haitham Ghanem
Project Manager
Engineer (Birmingham, USA)
Bachelor Physics (Gaza, Palestine)
Technical Consultant
PhD Physics (Utrecht, NL)
University Assistant, Vienna, Austria
Arch. Safaa Ghanem
Technical Consultant
Architect (Gaza, Palestine)
Dr. Ivan Coluzza
Project Coordinator
PhD Physics (Amsterdam, NL)
University Assistant, Vienna, Austria
Dr. Patrizia Cecconi
Humanitarian Impact S4P Projects
Social Scientist (Rome, Italy)