Events

NAWI Research Director Meagan Mauter, NAWI Data Modeling and Analysis Topic Area Leader Jordan Macknick, and NAWI Alliance Members Dan Gunter and Daniel Gingerich organized a workshop at the 2022 Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) Research and Education Conference.

The workshop, titled “Using National Alliance for Water Innovation’s Data Management and Water Treatment Techno-Economic Analysis Tools for Environmental Engineering Research and Entrepreneurship,” introduced attendees to NAWI’s water treatment technology analytical tools. 

The Water Data and Management Systems (Water-DAMS) is a data repository for water treatment technologies.

The Water Techno-economic Assessment and Pipe Parity Platform (Water-TAP3) an analytical tool that facilitates consistent techno-economic and performance analyses of water treatment processes across multiple sectors. Explore Water DAMS and Water-TAP3.

NAWI Executive Director Peter Fiske presented at WEFTEC 2023, the Water Environment Federation’s Annual Technical Exhibition and Conference. The largest conference of its kind, WEFTEC 2023 was held from 30 September to 4 October 2023 in Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. Fiske’s presentation, titled Advancing Desalination and Treatment of Non- Traditional Source Water: The First 3.5 Years of the National Alliance for Water Innovation, delved into NAWI’s portfolio of 74 research projects, network of 440+ NAWI Alliance member organizations, and more. Access the presentation here.

One primary objective of the NAWI program is to foster stronger connections between the academic research community and the water industry. We actively promote and financially support collaborative research initiatives, bringing together experts from academia, industry, and national laboratories. Additionally, we advocate for the direct involvement of industry professionals in all our research projects through their active membership in Project Support Groups.

The NAWI Leadership Team recently had a valuable chance to actively connect with the water treatment community during our participation in the annual Water Environment Federation’s Technical Exhibition and Conference (WEFTEC). NAWI unveiled its inaugural booth at WEFTEC and took the opportunity to host two noteworthy sessions: one focusing on the NAWI research program and another as an informational session within the “Innovation Theater.” We were thrilled to receive numerous visits from members of the NAWI Alliance community at our booth. The NAWI team was particularly grateful to be invited to Rockwell’s reception.

During the four-day event, the NAWI team actively participated in knowledge sharing, engaged in peer-to-peer dialogues, and fostered in-depth discussions. From these interactions, several intriguing themes surfaced:

• The concept of OneWater is challenging the water industry’s historical “stovepipe” separations between drinking water treatment and wastewater treatment. OneWater is also igniting some of the biggest thinking related to water treatment design and practice over the last century. Industrial water users and systems designers repeatedly emphasized their desire for breakthrough technologies that can facilitate improved use and reuse of the wastewater they generate. The drive for water efficiency is coming not only from practical concerns about securing more resilient water supplies at the level of individual manufacturing facilities, but also from strong corporate-level Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) goals. The head of Veolia’s North American Industrial Water Practice Area Patrick Schultz summed it up: “Most companies we are speaking with have [water reuse] goals, but no plans.”
• Direct Potable Reuse (DPR) is gaining significant momentum and recognition in the field. An all-star panel of experts and regulators gave a summary of the current state-of- play of DPR regulations emerging in across the United States. While specific standards and requirements vary considerably among the handful of states that have released proposed or adopted standards, this diversity may actually accelerate the speed at which new states establish DPR. Why? A new state can look at different approaches chosen by different states and adopt an approach that is “right for them” as opposed to struggling to fit itself within a single national standard.
• Corporate ESG goals are driving more than just an interest in water reuse but also an interest in zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) treatment plans. ZLD eliminates industrial discharges entirely—mitigating potential environmental risks while achieving significant milestones in corporate ESG objectives. “I never heard from industrial customers about ZLD five years ago,” noted one water industry leader, “but now it’s actively discussed and considered.”

The NAWI team will continue to engage the water industry directly at future trade shows and conferences. Our 2024 Annual Meeting, to be held from March 11-13 in Denver, Colorado, is set to align perfectly with the WateReuse Association’s Annual Meeting. This timing will bring us together in the same city, allowing for exciting opportunities to collaborate on joint activities and initiatives. Stay tuned for more information!

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) hosted a virtual side event on May 24, 2023 focused on the role of innovation in water security as climate change threatens global access to fresh water. The panel highlighted energy-water innovation and opportunities for international assistance and coordination. The event covered topics such as how innovation impacts the energy-water nexus; desalination innovations; and wastewater reuse innovations for drinking, irrigation, and industry.

Maven’s Notebook published a summary of a webinar held in February 2023 that brought together four experts to explore the potential and the challenges of expanding desalination in California. Hosted by the California Council on Science and Technology, the webinar featured NAWI Process Innovation and Intensification Deputy Topic Area Lead Eric Hoek, NAWI Research Director Meagan Mauter, and NAWI Research Advisory Council Chair David Sedlak. Read the summary.

In a few days, NAWI will host a delegation from NEOM, a historic project to develop fully renewable and sustainable communities along the barren northwestern coast of Saudi Arabia. The NEOM project arose from Saudi Vision 2030, and is an effort to diversify the country’s economy and demonstrate at full scale communities powered entirely by renewable energy. 

Given its location in one of the most arid places on Earth, innovations in desalination are foundational (and critical) to the viability of the project. Not only will 100% of the water for the communities and industries of NEOM come from desalinated water from the Red Sea, but the NEOM economy will be fueled in part by an entire economy that transforms the constituents of the reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate into valuable chemicals and physical products. 

Much of NAWI’s research program and vision aligns with the needs and goals of NEOM. We envision novel modular desalination systems that recover 100% of the water from a variety of non-traditional water sources — as well as brine concentration, crystallization, and valorization technologies that take dissolved constituents and transform them into high-value, carbon negative products. And, with an entire economic system powered by renewable energy, NAWI’s research into adaptive, dynamic, and resilient water treatment systems and control strategies may play a critical role in enabling renewables-dependent infrastructure to operate reliably.

An Enterprise Approach to Developing Industrial Membrane-based Solutions
A Virtual Seminar with Dr. Adil Dhalla
Singapore Membrane Consortium (SG MEM)
Monday, May 23, 2022 at 12:30 pm PT

Join Singapore Membrane Consortium’s (SG MEM) Dr. Adil Dhalla for a seminar presented by the National Alliance for Water Innovation on Monday, May 23, at 12:30 p.m. PT. He will discuss SG MEM’s framework for taking early stage membrane inventions to commercially viable solutions. These solutions help to tackle both water and environmental challenges.

Hybrid Event Highlights Partnerships and Collaborations for Platform Solutions

One of the biggest challenges for commercialization of novel ideas, even if the Intellectual Property is duly protected, is the gap between laboratory processes, results and testing, and the full scale final product. Key risks include scale-up of component materials and equipment, systems level thinking, testing at pilot scale in an actual application setting, and final implementation.

Singapore’s Membrane Consortium, SG MEM, was set up to enable partnerships and collaborations towards developing Platform Solutions across our Membrane Ecosystem.  It brings together early stage research from our universities, Singapore’s unique translational facilities, and industry partners from upstream (materials companies), to membrane manufacturers, solution providers and end-users of separations technologies.  This expanding and varied group of companies ranges from start-ups to SMEs, large local enterprises to multinationals.

One of the key institutional members of this ecosystem is the Separation Technologies Applied Research and Translation (START) Centre, Singapore’s national facility for bridging the gap between promising innovations in separations, especially membrane based inventions, at the laboratory scale, and industrial scale products and processes.  Over the past three years, this centre has built up broad capabilities in membrane (both flat-sheet and hollow-fiber) fabrication at industrial scale, the design, construction and testing of elements and modules, and the design of pilot systems for testing in real-life scenarios. 

This talk will showcase two case studies in how we have built the framework to take early stage membrane inventions to commercially viable solutions for key challenges in the fields of Water and Environment.  Examples will include technologies focused on industrial waste-water treatment for re-use, including potential recovery of valuables from the waste stream, and development and piloting of systems for lowering desalination system cost.

One of the biggest challenges for commercialization of novel ideas, even if the Intellectual Property is duly protected, is the gap between laboratory processes, results and testing, and the full scale final product.  Key risks include scale-up of component materials and equipment, systems level thinking, testing at pilot scale in an actual application setting, and final implementation.

Singapore’s Membrane Consortium, SG MEM, was set up to enable partnerships and collaborations towards developing Platform Solutions across our Membrane Ecosystem.  It brings together early stage research from our universities, Singapore’s unique translational facilities, and industry partners from upstream (materials companies), to membrane manufacturers, solution providers and end-users of separations technologies.  This expanding and varied group of companies ranges from start-ups to SMEs, large local enterprises to multinationals.

One of the key institutional members of this ecosystem is the Separation Technologies Applied Research and Translation (START) Centre, Singapore’s national facility for bridging the gap between promising innovations in separations, especially membrane based inventions, at the laboratory scale, and industrial scale products and processes.  Over the past three years, this centre has built up broad capabilities in membrane (both flat-sheet and hollow-fiber) fabrication at industrial scale, the design, construction and testing of elements and modules, and the design of pilot systems for testing in real-life scenarios. 

This talk will showcase two case studies in how we have built the framework to take early stage membrane inventions to commercially viable solutions for key challenges in the fields of Water and Environment.  Examples will include technologies focused on industrial waste-water treatment for re-use, including potential recovery of valuables from the waste stream, and development and piloting of systems for lowering desalination system cost. 

Singapore Membrane Consortium and World-class Research, Dedicated Translation and Test-bedding Capabilities

The Singapore Membrane Consortium (SG MEM) was launched in 2018, and serves as an umbrella platform to integrate, coordinate and expand membrane-based technologies and commercial offerings from Singapore to the world. We are funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Singapore, and our mandate includes connecting existing cutting-edge membrane research and innovation activities (which range from fundamental research to applied and translational research) with industry partners. This is aimed at accelerating the commercialization of membrane technologies that meet industry needs in and beyond water e.g. gas separation and purification, concentration and purification of ingredients/mixtures/solvents in the pharmaceutical and food and beverage sectors, controlled drug delivery systems etc.

Our ecosystem encompasses institutes of higher learning (IHLs), national scale-up and translation centres as well as industry members. We currently have 28 industry members on paid membership, spanning from chemical suppliers, to membrane manufacturers, system integrators, solution providers and end users. We also recently signed partnership agreements with international universities and research centres from the US, Europe, Israel and Australia to explore new research areas for potential collaboration.

About Dr. Adil Dhalla 

Dr Adil Dhalla is Managing Director, Separation Technologies Applied Research and Translation (START) Centre, funded by Singapore’s National Research Foundation, is a national facility for bridging the gap between research innovations and commercial outcomes.  The START Centre’s mandate involves scaling up industrially relevant advanced separation technologies and processes from the various Institutions of Higher Learning and Research Institutes in Singapore, evaluating their efficacy at pilot scale, and commercializing them with industrial partners.  Currently in it’s second phase, the START Centre has also been selected to lead an effort to find cutting-edge technologies with the potential to lower the system cost of seawater desalination, translate as needed to higher Technology Readiness Levels, and set up and operate a demonstration scale Integrated Validation Plant for testing the same at scale.

Dr. Dhalla chairs the steering committee of SG MEM, Singapore’s Membrane Consortium.  SG MEM functions as the umbrella organization coordinating innovation in the field of membranes across Institutions of Higher Learning, Research Institutes, and key Industry players, including polymer companies, membrane manufacturers, integrators, and systems level solution providers, as well as end users from pharma, food and beverage and refining.  

He serves on the Water Technology Advisory Panel for PUB, Singapore’s national water agency, and Environment and Resources Standards Committee (ERSC), Singapore.

Dr Dhalla is also concurrently Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Executive Director, Nanyang Environmental and Water Research Institute (NEWRI) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU).  Ranked among the world’s top water research organisations, NEWRI operates across the spectrum of Research, Innovation and Enterprise, providing a multi- and trans-disciplinary platform for some 250 researchers in the domains of Water, Waste, Wastewater, and the Energy-Water nexus.  

Prior to his current roles, he was the Director of the GE Singapore Water Technology Center at NUS, from April 2010 to July 2015, where his role included leading GE’s technology efforts in Singapore, and liaising with regional government agencies and universities on collaborative efforts relating to technology development.  He was also an Ombudsperson for GE Power and Water, ASEAN.

Before coming to Singapore, he was the Technical Director of the Polymer Science and Technology team, and earlier the Chemistry and Characterization team, at GE’s John F. Welch Technology Center in Bangalore, India. Since joining GE in 2000, he established and led technical centers of excellence in chemistry, materials and process technologies.

After completing his five-year integrated master’s degree in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India, he earned a doctorate in chemistry from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Following a post-doctoral stint at Penn State University, he was a research fellow at the Bristol-Myers Squibb PRI in Princeton, N.J., and a senior manager in the research and technology division of Ciba Specialty Chemicals in Mumbai, India.

With industrial experience spanning twenty nine years, including twenty five years in management roles, his key areas of professional expertise include the leadership and operational management of large, multifunctional teams, strategic planning, R&D in product/process development and commercialization.  He has co-authored more than 20 issued patents (US and EP), more than 30 GE internal reports and several publications in peer-reviewed international journals.

Dr. Peter Fiske, NAWI Executive Director, engaged in two days of learning about innovative research in water treatment, progress being made by some great organizations, and new funding opportunities.

A note from NAWI Research Director Meagan Mauter. A year and a half into our research program, the NAWI community is beginning to generate significant research products.  It is my pleasure to highlight several NAWI-themed special issues in leading water research journals where NAWI researchers can disseminate their work and NAWI alliance members can learn about cutting edge research relevant to their sectors.

The first special issue, entitled “Technology Baselines and Innovation Priorities for Water Treatment and Supply” is expected to be released by ACS ES&T Engineering this fall.  Edited by NAWI’s industrial source water cartographer, Prof. Jaehong Kim of Yale University; NAWI’s agricultural source water co-cartographer, Prof. Dionysios Dionysiou of the University of Cincinnati; and myself, this issue will highlight both baseline data collected by the NAWI roadmapping team and complementary articles from the water research community.  In sum, this special issue highlights rigorous assessments of the economic, energy, environmental, and social implications of a circular water economy transition. It will also highlight work that documents current state-of-the-art technologies for water reuse and establishes technology targets for future innovations. Finally, it highlights work that contextualizes the value of technology innovation and/or policy change in the transition to a circular water economy.

The second special issue, on “Water Purification” in NPJ Clean Water is currently open for submissions.  Dedicated to highlighting advances in the purification of alternative (impaired) water sources, identifying the gaps and needs for freshwater provisions, state-of-the-art technologies and processes, and advances needed to reduce cost and energy of treating such waters, this Special Collection will be curated by Guest Co-Editors-in-Chief Professor Meagan Mauter, Stanford University, and Professor Arne Verliefde, Ghent University.  The journal seeks cutting-edge papers in the fields of brackish groundwater and seawater desalination, municipal water recycling as well as industrial and agricultural water reclamation, recycling and reuse.  Additional details are available on the NPJ Clean Water website.

We look forward to sharing the fruits of NAWI’s investments in APRIME water desalination technologies with the water research community through these two special issues!

Despite efforts to conserve, traditional water supplies will become increasingly constrained in some U.S. regions as populations grow, industry demands expand, and/or regulations restrict access to over-drafted aquifers and require additional environmental flows in rivers and streams to support ecological needs. Water scarcity will be exacerbated by the changing climate. Warmer temperatures and/or shifting precipitation patterns may escalate irrigation demands while sea level rise may increase groundwater and surface water salinity in coastal areas. According to the Government Accountability Office, forty U.S. states expect to experience water shortages in the next few years, highlighting the need for increased access to non-traditional water supplies (e.g., seawater and brackish water desalination; “wastewater” reuse from municipal, industrial, agriculture, power, oil and gas, and mining sectors).

Developing new supplies in water scarce-areas must be done with long-term sustainability in mind, considering the social, economic, and environmental implications. Water managers need new metrics and tools to compare tradeoffs between alternative water resource opportunities based on, for example, economic performance, system reliability and resilience, and environmental impacts. This information will guide decision-makers toward pipe parity, a condition where the full costs of providing new water supplies, including conveyance, treatment, disposal, and ancillary costs and benefits, are comparable to the marginal supplies in use today.

The National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI) aims to prioritize research investments that maximize pipe parity for non-traditional water supplies in critical regions. This talk will describe NAWI’s early efforts to develop pipe parity metrics; identify barriers to non-traditional water use for five broad categories of water users; collect and curate data on water technology, sources and uses in a state-of-the-art database (WaterDAMS); and develop a tool (WaterTAP 3 ) to comprehensively and consistently quantify pipe parity for non-traditional water supplies across the diverse set of conditions in the U.S.