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We have developed a novel directional solvent extraction technology that is a zero-discharge, organic solvent-based desalination technique that is environmentally friendly and outperforms current state of the art desalination techniques. We call this novel technology 'Uppu'.
Potable water is becoming increasingly scarce. As such, new and cost-effective methods are required in the water sector to provide potable water to an ever-growing global population. To combat the growing scarcity of potable water, in 2014, BlueStem laid the foundations for what would become the ‘Uppu’ technology, which is a now a process that effectively and efficiently separates water from salt, thus providing two revenue streams without producing any discharges.
The 'Uppu' technology has the following performance metrics:
The ‘Uppu’ technology produces both potable water and edible salt from seawater, brines and effluents and produces zero waste/discharge.
The ‘Uppu’ technology is independent of infeed salt concentrations (TDS).
‘Uppu’ desalination plants cost 40-45% less to operate than the industry gold-standard: reverse osmosis (RO) plants.
The capital expenditures and maintenance costs for RO and ‘Uppu’ plants are effectively equivalent.
The ‘Uppu’ technology is an environmentally friendly, zero discharge process, whereas RO returns 45% of the infeed back into the ocean as a highly concentrated brine.
'Uppu' plants are modular and scalable.
The ‘Uppu’ technology uses a mixture of organic ‘directional solvents’ to absorb water (and only water) from salty effluents, irrespective of the infeed salt concentration. These directional solvents are a proprietary mixture of readily available, cheap, non-toxic, organic compounds.
As can be seen in the schematic diagram, in a specialised mixing tank, water is absorbed in the directional solvents and salt is left behind. This water-rich ‘pregnant’ directional solvent is then transported to our proprietary separation vessels where potable water is removed from the directional solvent under specific operating conditions. This directional solvent is then reused for other cycles, thereby creating a closed-loop system. Salt is precipitated from the highly saline effluent in the absorption tank and this salt may be sold as a secondary revenue stream.
BlueStem is currently engaging with industry partners to develop container-sized 'Uppu' plants capable of producing several thousand litres of potable water per day.
Some recently published research work is shown here: https://doi.org/10.1002/jsde.12360
An Uppu technology brief is presented here.
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