#desalination #cryo-separation #innovation #watertech #cleantech #eco-friendly
about us :
The need for drinking water around the world is becoming increasingly pressing. In 2020, 2.2 billion people suffered from a lack of water worldwide, and this number is expected to reach 3 billion by 2030. With 40% of the world’s population currently living less than 100km from the sea and 25% less than 25km, seawater desalination is one of the key solutions to address this global challenge by providing the greatest number of people with secure and sustainable water from an unlimited resource.
However, existing desalination solutions, whether by evaporation or membrane treatment (reverse osmosis), have a negative environmental impact because of the very salty brine and chemicals discharge into the ocean as well as the significant greenhouse gas emissions resulting from high electricity consumptions. Also, due to their large capital and operations costs, they are only accessible to a minority of countries with significant financial resources.
These main hurdles are stopping desalination from going mainstream around the world: this water treatment solution is still considered today as a last resort option for drinking water supply when all other alternatives (surface or groundwater, conservation policy, network efficiency works, wastewater reuse, rainwater storage, etc.) have been exhausted.
Seawards, a young French startup company created in 2021, intends to change this situation by providing a sustainable and affordable desalination solution addressing the limitations of existing desalination methods thanks to the development of an innovative nature-based technology: cryo-separationTM. Thanks to a process extracting fresh water from seawater by combining crystallization technologies and separation of liquid-solid phases by external forces, without adding any chemicals, the solution offers many benefits:
– Affordable: Low maintenance (robustness of the process), no chemical consumables and reduced energy consumption and/or partially self-produced on site with the ambition of reducing production costs by 10% to 30% compared to existing solutions
– Environmentally-friendly: no use of chemical products for water treatment and no discharge of toxic brine into the marine environment (discharge of slightly saltier seawater <+10% than that of the seawater intake so with no impact on the marine ecosystem)
– Agile: reduced land footprint (light pre-treatment), modularity and prefabrication of our units making our solution easily deployable and affordable for all countries.
Seawards plans to set up and start its first technology pilot in an operational environment by mid-2024 in the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille. With an estimated freshwater production capacity of 15m3/day, it will be composed of three main modules: crystallizer, flotation unit and separator (see details on picture). To these core components, we must add other equipment, such as pre-treatment, disinfection and water storage, that will all be containerized in a 40-foot container for shipping. The footprint required for the installation of this desalination unit, as well as for a workspace for the Seawards team, is estimated at about 120m2 (interior).
CONTACT US
2 Boulevard Debeaux, 13008 Marseille
E-mail : h.lanversin@seawards.fr
Tél. : +33 (0)6 63 91 34 12
www.seawards.fr
