A cleaner way to desalinate water

It is well known that Qatar depends heavily on desalination to meet the water needs of its population. The predominantly used technology for this purpose is the Integrated Water and Power Plant (IWPP) which uses the Multi-Stage Flash Distillation (MSFD) method. Many now consider this technology to be discredited due to the environmental damage associated with it.

However, there is a new, alternative technology that claims to resolve all the environmental, sustainability and security concerns. The Incrediwell Process, the brainchild of British expatriate Ron Daniel, also claims to reduce fossil fuel consumption associated with desalination, district cooling and air conditioning and thereby reducing carbon emissions.

Having worked in the construction industry in different parts of the world and presently serving as the general manager of Composium Group WLL in Qatar, Daniel has developed the Incrediwell Process over the past 15 years and now has Intellectual Property (IP) protection as well as a patent application for the fully developed concept.

In an interview with Gulf Times Community, he considers the water production and consumption scenario in the Gulf region and the salient features of his invention.

Excerpts from the interview:

What has been the impact of large scale desalination on the Arabian Sea?

Qatar and most of its neighbours in the GCC depend heavily on water from the Arabian Gulf as a feed source for their desalination plants. According to researchers, every year the average water temperature in the Gulf is getting higher and the water is also becoming saltier at alarming rates.

The Arabian Gulf is one of the youngest seas. It is (or was) also one of the most fertile seas on the planet and has hosted a multitude type of marine ecology, supporting an abundant and healthy fish stock. However, in recent times significant damage to this sea has been recorded. The most important being the almost complete destruction of Gulf coral. Globally, the health of coral is in danger because the seas all over the world are getting warmer. The scale of damage in the Arabian Gulf, however, is on an entirely different level as a result of water temperatures climbing three-times faster than elsewhere. There is a crisis with fishing too as fishermen are nowadays coming back with less and less catch.

Can you tell us about the significance of your new process?

To fully appreciate the significance of the Incrediwell Process we must look at it in the context of current practices and the consequential condition of the Arabian Gulf environment. We have a growing population in Qatar and it is projected to double by the year 2022. The water supply associated with this doubling in demand will need to be both secure and sustainable — presently it is neither. According to many researchers and analysts, the indications suggest that the Gulf states are potentially heading for a severe water supply crisis resulting from unsustainable practices.

There is sufficient water capacity in Qatar at present and the country has already implemented measures to create reservoirs that will provide water supply in the event of a disruption to the distillation process. But these reservoirs are expected to provide water supply for just seven days.

What has been the impact of increase in water temperature on the present desalination system?

Gulf countries draw seawater for two reasons — to create electricity and to obtain potable water. It is has been recorded during summer months that very often the MSFD  power plants in the Gulf region have had to be shut down because the seawater used to cool the turbines is often too hot to provide sufficient cooling. In such conditions, power stations can’t work effectively, despite the large sums of money invested in them in order to meet the growing demand for water. It has been reported that some stations now use cooling towers to cool the seawater before it can in turn be used to cool the turbines.

What are the salient features of your concept?

We use the acronym SUEDES to remind us of the main attributes — Secure, Unique, Environmentally-sound, Discreet, Economic and Sustainable.

The Incrediwell system is secure because it provides an inexhaustible, infinite source of water without the significant risks current practices face daily. This process is a unique assembly of tried and tested technologies and procedures. It is environmentally sound, unlike the destructive and discredited open-intakes predominantly used to source seawater. We do not have any of the brine disposal issues to contend with. Ours is a Zero Liquid Discharge process. The entire system is below ground, thereby invisible and discreet.

In addition, the Incrediwell Process comes at a significantly lower cost than current practices. Sustainability is accomplished because this process meets the needs of the present without destroying the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Have you implemented Incrediwell Process anywhere?

Yes, but not in its new and fully-developed form. Before coming to Qatar I was in Bahrain and as the Executive Director in charge of the Durrat Al Bahrain project, I introduced the first commercial beach well system (used to source sub-seabed water) in the Middle East. Later, I initiated the use of a second beach well on another project called Bahrain Business Bay. While they are both functioning satisfactorily, the Durrat al Bahrain system is not performing as intended due to the combined detrimental effects of the political unrest and the worldwide economic stagnation.

I have yet to carry out a full pilot project with the Incrediwell Process and we are currently sourcing support from either the governmental or private sector to install a prototype in Qatar to validate my claims about this concept.

How does the Incrediwell Process differ in its functioning from MSFD method of desalination?

To begin with, my process draws water from the sub-seabed by installing beach wells (or drains) where the temperature of the water is less than the surface seawater. In case of an oil spill, the oil will float on the surface of the sea and the water in the beach wells will be unaffected in its performance. This is why I say it is secure.

Normally what happens in MSFD is that the water is drawn from the surface of the sea — it is called surface intake — and while doing that, much of the marine life in the vicinity is also sucked into the system, a consequence known as entrainment.

Furthermore, sea water is a very difficult material to work with. Aside from its corrosive properties, when the water is drawn through the intake system, within a very short time the whole system is coated with barnacles, molluscs, seaweeds, etc. Chlorine must be used if their growth is to be prevented so that the targeted volumes of water can be achieved.

The present intake systems are heavily dosed with chemicals (biocides) to protect against the fouling caused by marine plants and animals. The seawater that is drawn through this chemically-protected system is boiled while cooling the power station turbines. Almost two-thirds of the original volume is then returned to the sea. Commonly called as ‘brine,’ this discharge is very salty, contributing to the increasing salinity of the Gulf Sea. It contaminates the sea water and is dangerous to the marine life too.

We don’t need to use biocides because there is no marine life at all in the sub-seabed abstraction system. Our system is self-filtering. Therefore, I can directly put this water into the Incrediwell Process and use the entire abstracted volume without any discharge or brine disposal worries. Once we have harmlessly abstracted the seawater, there are many things that can be done with it.

Can you elaborate further on the uses of water thus obtained?

The water we obtain in our process is cold and crystal clear. We have a number of applications for it at this stage and all applications typically end with desalination. For example, one of the combinations we offer consists of first using the sea water to provide free-cooling to any building like hotels, malls, stadia, etc. and only then is the highly filtered water utilised as a feed source for desalination.

Another example relates to the huge industrial cooling towers such as those in a district cooling plant. These towers make their water cool by the process of evaporation. This comes at a very high cost because tens of thousands of cubic metres of water is lost daily due to evaporation.

The Incrediwell Process, on the other hand, feeds seawater directly into the chillers as it is already sufficiently cold. Thus the costly and spatially demanding cooling towers are not required and there is no loss of water either.

Besides potable water, we understand that edible salt is obtained as a by-product in your technique. How this is done?

Iodine-rich edible sea salt is another spin-off that is unique to Incrediwell Process. After using the sub-seawater for cooling/air conditioning of certain types of built environment, this water is now available as the desalination feed-source. After the extraction of potable water through distillation, there is a salty residue that remains behind. Since no biocides have been used in our process, the residue is uncontaminated. Using the energy of the sun to harvest the last of the water content, we are left with nothing but high-quality, iodine-rich edible salt.

This salt can then be converted into extremely high-temperature molten salt via daytime concentrated solar energy which in turn can be used as a heat sink to generate electricity overnight. As a result, we can transform a solar energy generation project that would otherwise only function in daylight hours, into a 24/7 energy production process.

How can your innovation be sustainable for future generations?

The Incrediwell Process is a robust system and will last for many generations — because once you install it in the depths of the sea, over a very short period of time it gets integrated into the geology of its new environment. There are no corrosion-susceptible parts or moving parts so it stays for many years in the same condition as when it was first installed, without any discernible change in its performance or yield.