ETA 2021 Strategic Plan - Flipbook - Page 33
processes. This value-added activity intends to
spur commercial development of co-produced
geothermal resources using existing wells and
infrastructure.
Novel Desalination Technologies
This area focuses on new separation processes
and hybrid technologies, water–energy system
integration, and mitigation of environmental
impacts to achieve lower-cost, more effective,
and sustainable desalination of nontraditional
waters.
New Paradigms for Separation Processes
and Desalination Technologies. ETA, in close
collaboration with Berkeley Lab’s ESA, is
exploring the basic physical and chemical
properties of water and water-based
electrolytes via a unique blend of inorganic
synthesis and optical and xray microscopy
and spectroscopy coupled with novel microdroplet and aerosol methods. We seek to
exploit these effects to enhance contaminantselective separations of saline and brackish
water within nano-engineered materials to
discover and accelerate development of novel
desalination processes. The goal is to probe and
tune these properties at the molecular level,
to enable a device design that will shape a new
paradigm in desalination and separations. The
ongoing fundamental research at ETA and ESA
focuses on extending the experimental and
theoretical studies on solvated ion structuring
at the water/vapor interface to interfaces of
water and solids. Harnessing Berkeley Lab’s
strengths in data science, high-performance
computing, fundamental process discovery, and
materials science and manufacturing, ETA is
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working toward technological innovations and
improvements toward lower cost, improved
energy efficiency, and reduced carbon emission
of desalination of unconventional water.
New Approaches for Integrating Renewable
Energy and/or Low-Grade Heat with Desalination.
A portable, facile, and individually adaptable
desalination technology can be achieved with
new advanced molecular framework materials
with high ion sorption capacity toward saline
salts. High surface area for efficient ion
transport, and accessibility to high-density
binding sites in these materials facilitate the
efficient complexation of ions within the
inorganic or organic matrix, which can increase
the overall desalination rate significantly.
The use of renewables to achieve recovery of
adsorbed salts can be realized by integrating
these materials with selective solar emitter
devices.
Forward osmosis (FO) is another membranebased separation process that has achieved
some market success. However, substantial
research, development, demonstration, and
deployment must be completed for this
method to compete with RO and traditional
thermal desalination techniques. The ongoing
work on FO water purification relies on a class
of thermally sensitive draw agents that can
significantly reduce the cost of desalination
and enhance FO application to highly saline
brines and zero-liquid discharge separation
Hybrid Desalination Processes to Increase Energy
Efficiency and Recovery. Overall product water
recovery in a desalination process can be
increased through the serial or simultaneous
application of more than one desalination
process, such as thermal, biological, membranebased, or electrochemical processes.
Hybridization offers opportunities to reduce
desalination costs and expand the flexibility of
operations with nontraditional waters of various
degrees of salinity and ionic composition. This
is a particularly promising technical approach
for affordable treatment and utilization of
nontraditional brackish water sources. Brackish
water (of intermediate salinity 1,000–10,000
milligrams of salt per liter) is widely available
(~60% land area). ETA is working on a new
robust, efficient, and low-cost hybrid capacitive
deionization (CDI) desalination technique
specifically designed for treatment of brackish
sources.
Assessment and Mitigation of Environmental
Issues. The environmental impact of desalinating
seawater and brackish water must be
considered, and research into technologies and
approaches to reduce those impacts are critical
to greater adoption of desalination. Intakes for
seawater desalination can significantly impact
coastal ecosystems through entrainment and
entrapment of marine organisms, and the brine
discharge can affect sensitive species unless
sufficiently diffused. Inland, the disposal of brine
from brackish water desalination also presents
technical and environmental challenges. The
reuse of high-salinity concentrates, and minerals
extracted from them, should be further explored
and developed to help mitigate environmental
impacts while generating revenues to help offset
concentrate-management costs. This is an area
for close ETA collaboration with scientists in
Berkeley Lab’s EESA.
Critical Material Recovery
Critical materials are used in many products, and
at present the United States is a net importer of
most of these materials. For national security
and a resilient future, it is important to establish
domestic production capabilities for separating
and processing critical materials, including rare
earth elements (neodymium, praseodymium,
dysprosium, terbium, and samarium) used in
permanent magnets for EV motors, wind turbine
generators, and high-temperature applications;
cobalt used in EV batteries, grid storage, and
high-temperature permanent magnets; and
Li, manganese, and natural graphite used in
batteries.
ETA will leverage the robust ongoing research
in thermal and electrochemical processes and
devices, including lithium-ion batteries, redox
flow batteries, and polymer membrane fuel cells,
to overcome the technical challenges associated
with existing extraction processes and provide
solutions that are essential for the success of
U.S. “green economy” efforts.
Water and Energy-Use Efficiency
ETA advances innovation and adoption of new
technologies for more efficient water use.
Sustained investment in R&D for technologies,
along with research on improved practices for
agriculture, build upon the significant gains in
energy-use efficiency in the agricultural sector
over the past 50 years. To guide this innovation,
ETA researchers have shown the value of
assessing life-cycle (LC) energy costs and impacts
of urban and agricultural water-delivery systems.
We plan to extend the analysis and assess
LC impacts associated with water demands
in enhanced oil recovery. There are also new
opportunities in the emerging shale gas sector.
The convergence of the oil and gas industry’s
interests and Berkeley Lab’s research resources
appears particularly promising.
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