Laboratory for Applied Research in Water Desalination using Solar Energy

Introduction
On one hand, fresh water, which is necessary for life on earth, is very scarce and it will become insufficient in the near future. On the other hand, the same will occur with other non-renewable resources like oil and coal. Therefore it is essential to develop human resources, methods and technologies that guarantee a habitable word to the next generations. This is particularly true for developing countries in the warm regions of earth where water requirement is especially high.
Since approximately 94 percent of all the globe’s water is saltwater from seas and oceans, desalting techniques have been used for a long time to increase the range of water resources for drinking and farming and they will continue being used in the future. However, desalting requires a high investment, energy consumption and maintenance. Thus, the only way to prepare the society to confront successfully the coming difficulties is preparing outstanding human resources and developing new technologies in all aspects of the desalination field.
While the industry is developing very important activities in this area, research and education are showing very slow progress. One reason for this situation is that research and educational institutions have to access real plants for testing new methods, carrying out experiments and training students and personnel. It is necessary to remark here, that it is not always possible to use real working plants in order to carry out research experiments due to interruption of the production.
Project Goal
The goal of this project is to develop the infrastructure (material and human resources) that supports research activities in this area. Researchers and students are to become familiar with desalination techniques, new developments will be able to be tested with real plants and the industry will directly profit by improving their production systems and to introduce new technologies.
Research Scope
During this project, a part of the necessary laboratory equipment will be installed. In addition, experiments for educational purposes will be elaborated combined with an introductory training for a teaching assistant from AAST. Together with other human and material resources, the research activities are be conducted aiming at:
- Modular and extensible system design of a desalination system using solar energy source either solely or combined with other energy sources such as wind
- System control to optimise multiple-criteria such as energy consumption, availability, efficiency and costs
- Adaptation of the solar energy source to requirements of the desalination plant Improving plant operation, monitoring, maintenance and logistic to achieve high availability and reduced cost

International Cooperation
Research interests in desalination are shared between the Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Verwaltung Zurich (HSZ-T)-Switzerland, University of Mannheim (UMA)-Germany and the Arab Academy for Science and Technology (AAST) – Egypt. Main interests of HSZ-T are the issues of maintenance and logistic, UMA is concerned with the system design and control aspects while AAST is active in the area of photovoltaic. The three research groups plan to have similar research laboratory to allow the exchange of results in the different sectors. A part of this laboratory is established at HSZ-T with the financial support of SWISSCONTACT. In addition, larger projects in the same area with more partners from Europe and the Mediterranean region are in preparation. One project proposal is submitted to the Middle East Desalination Centre – Oman and another is under preparation for submission to the European Union.

Contact address:
Niyazi Ari
Dr.sc.techn. ETH Dipl. El.-Ing. ETH
Prorektor
Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Verwaltung Zürich
Technoparkstr. 1
8005 Zürich
E-Mail: nari@fhzh.ch