The lack of availability of fresh drinking water is one of the biggest problems in the third world. Very often regions lacking fresh water often have available brackish or salt water and abundant sunshine. In more affluent communities, the destruction of modern infrastructure by natural calamities is also a recurrent occurrence which unfortunately is becoming quite frequent.
Floating SolDI proposes an inexpensive, small and portable floating desalination unit that would enable the user to obtain fresh water. By supplying the much-needed potable water, the risk of the associated diseases would be greatly minimized and the affected community would be given enough breathing space to overcome the disaster and reconstruct. The strain on the logistics of the rescue efforts would also be greatly reduced.
The unit would be foldable and therefore occupy very little space, making it extremely transportable, even rugged enough to be dropped from an aircraft. Upon deployment the unit would desalinate or treat water using solar energy. The units would be cheap enough to enable several of them to be deployed to meet any need.
The team have developed an initial working prototype and are looking for funding to develop into a larger scale setup.
Dr Ing. Paul Refalo
Dr Ing. Stephen Abela
The technology was funded through the Maritime Seed Award.
Contact Nicola Camilleri or the Knowledge Transfer Office.