The International Desalination Association (IDA) has announced details of its inaugural set of courses and faculty for the new IDA Desalination Academy, which will officially be launched in conjunction with the 2012 Singapore International Water Week.

The courses will be presented on 4‑5 July 2012 at the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore, to be followed by a behind-the-scenes tour of the SingSpring Desalination Plant on 6 July.

The Desalination Academy will offer eight half-day courses over two days – tailored to the participant’s particular interest – with the option to choose two courses from Day 1 or Day 2, or four courses over both days.

Course topics will range from in-depth examination of membrane and thermal technologies, to costing strategies and plant operations. The faculty members (master teachers) of the academy are leading experts in their fields, distinguished by their combination of theoretical and practical knowledge and experience. Master teachers for these inaugural courses are Lisa Henthorne, Dr Mark Wilf, Nikolay Voutchkov, David H Paul, Dr Corrado Sommariva and Leon Awerbuch.

The course schedule is:

July 4 (Day 1)
Morning Parallel Courses
Lisa Henthorne – Introduction to desalination, RO and NF fundamentals, basic design steps, overall costing, new trends and new markets for reverse osmosis/nanofiltration.
Leon Awerbuch – Thermal desalination including history and basics of thermal processes, technological advances in MSF, MED and MED-TVD, energy input classifications and requirements for desalination, and hybrid systems.

Afternoon Parallel Courses
Dr Mark Wilf – The membrane desalination process; engineering and cost effective approaches to design of reverse osmosis desalination systems.
Dr Corrado Sommariva – Critical aspects of design and operation of thermal distillation processes and engineering.

July 5 (Day 2)
Morning Parallel Courses
David Paul – Practical training on reverse osmosis (RO) water treatment including strategies to correct seawater & brackish water RO system issues.
Dr Corrado Sommariva – Economics and desalination management.

Afternoon Parallel Courses
Nikolay Voutchkov – Basic and innovative approaches to intakes, pretreatment, novel membrane configuration and post-treatment technology advancement, including case studies.
Leon Awerbuch – Understanding hybrid systems and dual-purpose power desalination.

For further details, including registration fees, visit www.idadesal.org.