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To See the News Clip on NanoClear Click Here
General
Overview
Dais
has developed (and is prototyping) a non-Reverse Osmosis (N-RO) water
clean-up process branded “NanoClear”.
NanoClear
addresses a group of significant water industry issues
including membrane fouling, system CAPEX/OPEX, and effluent
disposal.
The
process provides clean water from human or industrial effluent,
seawater, biologically contaminated water, or brackish water doing so
using thermal energy.
NanoClear
is flexible in its deployment configuration. It can be a
scale-able “Point of Use” installation, it can be a
traditional fixed municipal facility, or it can be mated to an existing
RO facility augmenting the efficiencies of that existing RO
plant.
System
Overview
NanoClear
uses a specialized Dais nano-structured membrane which rejects
dissolved solids, organics, and biologics while
allowing the
permeation of water molecules from one face of the membrane to the
other.
Warm
water at atmospheric pressure impinges on one face of the
membrane. The other face of the membrane is held at a pressure less
than atmospheric.
Water
vapor absorbed by the membrane permeates across into the vacuum
where a regenerative blower directs it onto a cold surface where it
condenses into ultraclean water.
The
NanoClear process functions on as little as one degree centigrade
difference between the temperature of the warm saline water and the
condensation surface.
The
low
temperature differentials required by this process allows efficient use
of low-grade industrial waste heat, hydrologic temperature differences
and other smaller, more plentiful, thermal energy sources that
exist within the natural environment.
Benefits
The NanoClear process is
simple and robust. Operation is neither maintenance nor equipment
intensive.
The
nano-structured membrane (the ‘heart’ of the
process),
while rejecting dissolved solids and organic and biological
contamination, has no pores to become blocked.
It
is a solid dense polymer that absorbs water at the molecular level
rejecting dissolved materials. The surface is also inhospitable to
biological growth given high ionic content. Thus, the membrane surface
sees little to no foul or scale as in competing technologies.
The
driving force to transfer water across the membrane is the high
density of liquid water on one side and the low density of water vapor
on the other. This density difference is created by a regenerative
blower that captures the water vapor as it leaves the membrane and
compresses it so that it will condense. The process uses simple readily
available equipment that is electrically efficient. NanoClear is
estimated to consume 3 to 4 kWh (‘all in’) per
cubic meter
of potable water thus making it as electrically efficient and as cost
effective as ‘state-of-the-art’ RO systems.
Because
the pressures are low, the equipment to support the membrane is simple
and will be plastic based so capital costs are low. Unlike competing
capital intensive technologies the process retains it efficiency at
small scale so a large plant is not required to reach the desired
thermal and electrical efficiency. NanoClear can be viewed as a
building block for a distributed water processing rather than only a
centralized large scale operation, or “Point Of
Use”
applications.
Summary
NanoClear
has capital, operational, and application specific advantages over
exiting forms of water treatment and desalination.
Questions? Comments?
Drop us an email by clicking here Ask a NanoClear
question.
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