Desalinate Water, Produce Hydrogen and Treat Wastewater – All at Once

A team of researchers from the University of Colorado Denver College of Engineering and Applied Science, have found a way to desalinate water, produce hydrogen and treat wastewater, all at the same time.

In 2009, a study that was published in Environmental Science & Technology, integrated desalination into microbial fuel cells – a new technology that treats wastewater and produces electricity at the same time.

Theoretically, the model worked just fine, but it was much harder putting it into practice, because of the challenges of current fluctuation.

After six months of developing the hypothesis, Zhiyong (Jason) Ren and his team with the University of Colorado Denver found out that they could produce collectable and storable hydrogen gas, which is a big step in improving the technology.

Another study conducted by Professor Bruce Logan's group at Penn State University last year, found that the energy contained in hydrogen gas not only can offset the energy used for the desalination process but has surplus that can be used for downstream processing.

So now, Ren can go on to the next step and, along with his team, include using real wastewater to test the efficiency and to optimize the reactor configuration to improve system performance.

Humans will always need fresh water and reusable energy.

Now, on one hand purifying water demands lots of energy, and on the other, utility companies need huge amounts of water to produce energy, so the ultimate goal is to find a viable, low-energy-required treatment technology.

Ren said that “ships and their crews need energy generated on-site as well as fresh drinking water.

“Thus, the Navy is very interested in both low energy desalination and renewable energy production.

“This discovery is a milestone for our new research group,” stressed Ren.

“We are very excited about our findings and will continue working to improve the technology.”

The study was funded by the Office of Naval Research and was published in Environmental Science & Technology.