Mississippi State University (MSU), is to use US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funding to work on a low-cost desalination process.
The MSU team plans to build on an existing low-temperature thermal desalination system developed at the school, which exploits process waste heat and solar collectors in a vacuum. The team’s ambition is that its system will enable communities in rural and coastal areas to extract drinking water from seawater and brackish sources in a sustainable and affordable way.
The MSU grant is one of 38 recently awarded to universities throughout the US under the EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) grant programme. The projects will compete for phase two funding in the P3 competition at the National Sustainable Design Expo this spring.