Water Technology
Water Technology Overview
Sciperio is demonstrating that the recent technological revolution in materials, chemistry, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), and manufacturing can be applied to water technologies to make large, cost-effective improvements in water quality and treatment.
Today's world population is approximately 6.1 billion people and growing. By 2050, the population is projected to be over 8 billion†. Acquiring the natural resources necessary to support people will become an increasingly vital pursuit and the effective utilization of those resources will be an increasingly technological one. Of all the resources necessary to support life, water is arguably the most important, but also one of the most threatened by this surging growth. While less developed countries will likely be most threatened by this shortage, efficient water consumption is a topic that affects everyone.
With our characteristic transdisciplinary approach, Sciperio and its collaborators at SpectraWatermakers, Mechatronic Solutions Inc., and Desert Research Institute are currently developing new technologies and methods to address an anticipated scarcity of water using a three-pronged approach. We are focused on:
- Water Reclamation, Purification, and Desalination - Developing scalable, biomimetic, cost-effective methods that approach near 100% water recovery using in part advanced energy efficient reverse-osmosis techniques for high water throughputs and high water recovery ratios.
- Water Extraction - Using liquid desiccant processes to extract water from air to maximize water extraction density and be at least an order of magnitude more efficient than standard refrigeration.
- Saline Agriculture – We are beginning to explore the idea of a combinatorial genomics approach with high transfection efficiencies to study salt tolerant plants or non-plant organisms as a source of novel genes and pathways related to salinity and other stress tolerance
† Source:
United Nations, World Population Prospects, The 1998 Revision; and estimates by the Population Reference Bureau (via Human Population: Fundamentals of Growth, Population Reference Bureau).