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Workers on strike at desalination plant – Cyprus

Workers at the Episkopi desalination plant in Limassol said on Tuesday they will continue indefinitely the strike they launched a week ago, until their employer honours what had been agreed last year.

The strike began on May 30 after negotiations between the workers’ unions – PEO and SEK – and the company operating the desalination plant on employment terms fell through.

The around 20 workers at the Episkopi desalination plant had also gone on strike last year after they had said that their employer, Limassol Water Co Ltd, refused to grant them a collective agreement to safeguard their rights. The strike, that […]

Workers on strike at desalination plant – CyprusDME GmbH2017-06-07T09:55:36+02:00

The hidden talent of mushrooms for solar steam generation Read more: The hidden talent of mushrooms for solar steam generation

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In this work, for the first time, researchers utilize living organisms – mushrooms – to generate steam under sunlight. It turns out that the micro- and macrostructures of mushrooms possess all the needed characteristics for a good solar steam-generation device: high solar absorption; efficient water supply and vapor escape; and good thermal management. Interestingly, a mushroom is an unlikely candidate as it typically lives in the shadow, i.e. it doesn’t get to see sunlight that much.
The mushroom maintains its hydrophilicity before and after carbonization because of its components, which include carbohydrates and proteins; the nitrogen functional groups […]

The hidden talent of mushrooms for solar steam generation Read more: The hidden talent of mushrooms for solar steam generationDME GmbH2017-06-06T16:25:40+02:00

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has signed a 12-year Operating Plant Service Agreement (OPSA) with Siemens worth $463m (AED1.7bn)

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The contract includes providing maintenance, spare parts and gas turbine rehabilitation for the second phase of K-Station at Jebel Ali Power and Desalination Station as well as for the third phase of H-Station at the Al Aweer Power Station.

DEWA has also extended the Long Term Maintenance Plan (LTMP) for seven more years for the second phase of L-Station.

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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has signed a 12-year Operating Plant Service Agreement (OPSA) with Siemens worth $463m (AED1.7bn)DME GmbH2017-06-06T12:22:39+02:00

How rain-rich Chennai depends on the sea for its water supply

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At present, TN accounts for 24% of the total desalinated water capacity in India, second only to Gujarat. Experts meanwhile describe desalination as a „last option“.S Janakarajan, professor at Madras Institute of Development Studies, says that seawater desalination was conceived for rich, rain-starved countries like those in West Asia. „Chennai’s average annual rainfall is well over 1,200 mm. It should ideally be the last resort which, in this case, is not,“ Janakarajan said. With scant supply , water distribution is charted out daily by the CMWSSB.“Our planning [daily distribution] hinges on how much water the desalination plants supply […]

How rain-rich Chennai depends on the sea for its water supplyDME GmbH2017-06-06T12:19:37+02:00

Desalination the way to go in water-scarce South Africa

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“Desalination is a critical component. It is probably more important than nuclear. Everyone is talking about nuclear but, frankly, that is a secondary issue,” Turton told the yearly conference of the Southern African Asset Management Association, Saama.

He argued that desalination technologies should be used in cities like Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, East London and Richards Bay, also suggesting that this could cascade into recycling sewage, which he considers a game changer.

“If we can recycle our sewage we can recover five-billion litres of water a day. If you take 100 ℓ of sewage effluent that each […]

Desalination the way to go in water-scarce South AfricaDME GmbH2017-06-06T12:14:48+02:00

UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia) has partnered with Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) to develop a water desalination plant at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, UAE.

The project includes the development of a solar reverse osmosis desalination plant with a capacity of 50 m³/day. The capacity generation relies on a hybrid energy system combining photovoltaic cells (100 kW) and power storage system (batteries) with a capacity of 520 kWh.

The cooperation aims to raise awareness on the importance of finding sustainable and effective solutions to serve the drought-stricken areas and to highlight the role of renewable energy in achieving sustainable development, said HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, chairman of UAE Water Aid Foundation and MD & CEO of Dewa.

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UAE Water Aid Foundation (Suqia) has partnered with Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) to develop a water desalination plant at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park in Dubai, UAE.DME GmbH2017-06-06T12:05:50+02:00

Deconstructing Osmosis Provides Insight for Medical and Industrial Use

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New research now provides this thorough understanding, appearing as a pair of publications this week in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing. The first paper deconstructs the molecular mechanics of osmosis with high concentrations, and generalizes the findings to predict behavior for arbitrary concentrations. The second piece of the study then simulates via molecular modeling two key forms of osmotic flow in a broadly utilizable way.

“Osmotic transport driven by salinity difference occurs across many biological systems, and it is also used in various industrial applications,” said Hiroaki Yoshida of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in France and Toyota […]

Deconstructing Osmosis Provides Insight for Medical and Industrial UseDME GmbH2017-06-06T12:07:48+02:00

When waste water freezes, it is purified – applications for the mineral extraction industry?

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Interdisciplinary research on freezing of waste water
Research into the freezing of waste water recently received funding from the Academy of Finland. The name of the research project is WINICE (Wastewater treatment by natural freeze crystallization and ice separation). The duration of the project is three years, 2015-2017.

The study involves LUT researchers in chemical technology, mechanical engineering, and mathematical modelling.  Also conducting research into freezing technology are the so-called icebreakers – the Marine Technology Research Group of Professor Pentti Kujala at Aalto University, and the so-called ice transporters – the mechanical engineering research group of Professor Aki […]

When waste water freezes, it is purified – applications for the mineral extraction industry?DME GmbH2017-05-30T17:22:00+02:00

Nuclear power station to reduce water consumption and desalinate groundwater (South Africa)

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In response to this, Eskom has decided to install a groundwater desalination plant at Koeberg nuclear power station. This process entails removing salts and other contaminants from groundwater to make it suitable for human consumption. In this instance, groundwater from the aquarium located near to the power station will be desalinated for use at Koeberg nuclear power station for its daily needs.

The objective of this project is to reduce Koeberg’s dependency on, and consumption of municipal water supplied by the City of Cape Town. This effort contributes to the city’s goal, which is to reduce water […]

Nuclear power station to reduce water consumption and desalinate groundwater (South Africa)DME GmbH2017-05-30T11:13:17+02:00

New way to recover almost 100 percent of the water from highly concentrated salt solutions

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the researchers developed a self-heating carbon nanotube-based membrane that only heats the brine at the membrane surface. The new system reduced the heat needed in the process and increased the yield of recovered water to close to 100 percent.

In addition to the significantly improved desalination performance, the team also investigated how the application of alternating currents to the membrane heating element could prevent degradation of the carbon nanotubes in the saline environment. Specifically, a threshold frequency was identified where electrochemical oxidation of the nanotubes was prevented, allowing the nanotube films to be operated for significant lengths of […]

New way to recover almost 100 percent of the water from highly concentrated salt solutionsDME GmbH2017-05-30T10:38:31+02:00