Offshore Desalination Prototype Wins Funding
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Business
Renewable Sector Engineering Company 4NRg Has Won Funding for its Development of a Prototype Mechanical Offshore Desalination Unit
Research and development specialist 4NRg focuses on the renewable energy sector and in particular coming up with innovative or novel solutions to difficult engineering problems.
In this case 4NRg has been awarded the grant from SCORE to develop their pioneering mechanical desalination unit. Most desalination units require a large commercial power source and as such are often located near to power stations. This method is therefore not suitable for remote areas and is very energy intensive, which is not ideal, particularly in the renewables sector.
Power source is what will set 4NRg's desalination unit apart from the crowd as it will not use a traditional source of power. 4NRg's ground-breaking desalination unit will harness the power of sea, through wave or tidal energy, in order to create fresh drinking water.
The offshore sector is one of the top markets identified for the unit due to the remote locations of the working areas, thus meaning that either large tanks of water have to be transported out to sea or there has to be a way to produce clean water for the engineers. Both these options are often costly and inconvenient, but having fresh water is vital when maintenance teams are spending long periods of time offshore, and this will inevitably increase as wind farms are built further from the shore.
This inventive desalination unit is currently only at the prototype stage so the next step for 4NRg is to upscale the prototype to a large enough size for it to be tested. It will then be independently assessed and have the amount of water produced and its quality evaluated in order to illustrate its potential to commercial developers.
This initial pilot project is planned to take 9 months, with the first up-scaled device being ready for testing in 3-6 months, either in a large testing tank or potentially in the sea. Due to the scale of the project 4NRg is planning to hire a project manager and two part time engineers.
Mark Aspinall, Business Development Director for 4NRg, said: "There are other desalination units on the market and in the development stages, but none are comparative to this one due to it not requiring electricity. If all goes to plan this unit could also be widely used in disaster areas where fresh water is often a scarce, yet crucial, resource.
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- Innovation
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- Desalination