Unlocking operational excellence in water desalination plants by nanoscale fouling sensor technology

Introduction

Global water stress currently impacts 40% of the world's population and is even worsening due to climate change. To counteract the devastating consequences, membrane desalination is exponentially booming with over 22,000 plants already operational in 2022.

Challenges in Membrane Desalination

Although membrane desalination has lower energy requirements compared to thermal processes, membrane fouling significantly jeopardizes the efficiency of these plants worldwide.

Consequences of Membrane Fouling

• It results in higher energy consumption.
• It requires frequent, at times aggressive, cleaning cycles.
• Increased process downtimes and expenditure on cleaning agents.
• Drastic reduction in membrane lifetime.

The consequence is significant economic losses for operators, a detrimental environmental impact, and an increased final price of the drinking water produced. Currently, there exist only corrective measures which are entirely insufficient as they are based on indirect measurements.

Innovative Solution: Excalibur

In stark contrast, our sensor system Excalibur (patent granted in the EU) is the first and only system detecting fouling and cleaning at nano levels directly on a membrane in real-time and non-invasively. This enables a truly predictive process monitoring.

Advantages of Excalibur

• Surpasses existing sensitivity limits by three orders of magnitude.
• Proprietary AI-based software provides unique and hitherto unattainable operational flexibility.
• Strong impact on running costs:
  • Membrane lifespan is prolonged by up to 20%.
  • Process downtimes are reduced by up to 60%.

By optimizing the use of chemical agents, Excalibur also enhances the sustainability of membrane processes.

Economic and Environmental Benefits

• Boosts energy savings (>10%).
• Increases economic efficiency (decrease cleaning cost by 25%).

Future Projections

According to our projections and B2B business model, we anticipate installing our solution in over 666 desalination plants (producing an estimated 25 million m³/day of water) until 2030, ensuring energy-efficient plant productivity and minimizing their environmental impact.