About the Project
Fresh water supply is a problem of worldwide concern: more than 1 billion people do not have reliable access to clean drinking water. Water is a particular problem for the developing world, but scarcity also impacts industrial societies. Water purification and desalination technology can be used to convert brackish ground water or seawater into drinking water. The challenge is to do so sustainably, with minimum cost and energy consumption, and with appropriately accessible technologies. Microbial desalination cells are a recent technology that could be applied to water desalination but the cells have not been well characterised and many operational parameters that affect the efficiency of the cells have not been optimised. This project will therefore develop a water desalination system based on bioelectrochemical systems, characterise and optimise its efficiency. Since desalination is driven by renewable energy, such desalination systems should be more sustainable than currently widely employed commercial technologies such as reverse osmosis. The expected start date is September 2023.
Funding Notes
The funding available covers tuition fees and bench fees only. There is no stipend associated with the project. There will however be an opportunity for the successful applicant to work as a demonstrator in our labs and generate some income.
