Insider's Look at the Desal Prize 2015

On April 22, 2015, the Desal Prize announced the competition's winning teams.  View the Desal Prize winners and their projects here.  The winning teams were selected through a head-to-head competition April 9-11, 2015 at the Bureau of Reclamation's Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The winning teams will also be invited to submit applications to receive grant funds to pilot their technology in a USAID mission region in a developing country.  

On April 6-12, 2015, the Desal Prize descended on Alamogordo, NM for a week of rigorous testing and competition. The competitors?  Five teams from around the globe working to prove their technology could help farmers in the developing world turn dirty, brackish water into clean, usable water for crops, livestock and human consumption using only energy from the sun. Surrounded by trillions of gallons of brackish water in the Alamogordo Basin, the teams had their work cut out for them.

Gathering at the Brackish Groundwater National Desalination Research Facility (BGNDRF), the five teams were tasked with two separate 24-hour testing periods to run their systems. The goal was lofty—to produce the highest percentage of potable and agriculture use water and effectively use only renewable energy to power their systems. With $200,000 in prize funding and a chance to pilot in a USAID mission region on the line, the stakes were high.

In the end, two teams were selected for their top performing brackish water desalination technologies. MIT and Jain Irrigation Systems was awarded first place for their photovoltaic-powered electrodialysis reversal (EDR) system and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Center for Inland Desalination Systems finished in second with their Zero Discharge Desalination (ZDD) technology.  You can view the Desal Prize winners and their projects here.  Our two winning teams are busy gearing up to pilot their technologies in a USAID mission region in a developing country. Stay tuned for updates as they roll out their technologies to the field for the true test of functionality.

Source: http://www.securingwaterforfood.org/the-desal-prize/