Technology transfer approaches for early stage desalinisation technologies: a case study

Abstract

Fresh water scarcity is one of the major challenges facing our society. Established technologies exist, though they are still very expensive preventing them from the immediate use and possible final solution. In this work it is analysed an innovative technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for desalination, using ionic concentration polarisation (ICP). The economic viability and a potential business model to deploy this technology are described further in this work. Construction of a prototype with several microchannels, and product development are still necessary, but the adoption of the niche market for small emergency devices to produce fresh water for boats can potentially be a successful path to deploy this technology.