SolMem LLC — Department of Agriculture SBIR Phase I: 8.4

Description

Agriculture drainage water management faces great challenges in semi-arid regions withsignificant irrigated agriculture. Drainage management strategies such as cost-efficient treatmentand reuse of drainage water for irrigation are needed to control salinity accumulation in irrigationwater and soil to minimize contamination of natural surface water and potential harm to wildlifeand to alleviate local and regional water stress. We propose to develop a low cost solar desalinationmethod to treat agriculture drainage water for irrigation. The technology will be developed basedon the Nanophotonic Enhanced Solar Membrane Distillation (NESMD) process invented at RiceUniversity. Building upon several ongoing research activities the proposed Phase I study willassess the technical and economic feasibility of using the NESMD process for high TDS agriculturedrainage water treatment and reuse. Specifically we will (1) investigate the impact of water qualityof agricultural drainage on system performance (2) investigate the impact of environmentalparameters and the mode of operation (3) evaluate optimal operating conditions (4) conductpreliminary cost estimation and pilot NESMD system design. The proposed Phase I study willprovide the necessary performance and cost data specific to agriculture water applications. It willallow us to identify any remaining technical barriers and prepare us for field study anddemonstration in Phase II.