Abstract
Water and energy are inextricably linked in today's society. This paper broadly introduces the water–energy nexus before focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, where residents have the poorest access to both clean drinking water and electricity worldwide. Given that many of the affected people live in remote areas, new solutions are required to improve the quality of life. The potential of decentralized photovoltaic-powered membrane filtration systems for the provision of potable water is highlighted. In particular, the potential of this technology is investigated for the removal of dissolved trace contaminants such as fluoride, which naturally occurs at extremely high concentrations in the water sources of northern Tanzania. Results from field research demonstrate the importance of matching the best membrane to a particular water source to achieve the highest permeate production that complies with drinking-water guidelines at the lowest specific energy consumption.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1112-1123 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| Journal | Energy Technology |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 7 |
| Early online date | 5 May 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2017 |
Funding
A.I.S. and B.S.R. would like to acknowledge the financial support provided by Helmholtz Recruitment Initiative Fellowships, while a PhD scholarship for J.S. was provided by the Energy Technology Partnership (U.K.) together with the Drinking Water Quality Regulator for Scotland. Two Leverhulme Royal Society Africa Awards, SADWAT-Tanzania and SUCCESS, are acknowledged for partial project funding of the Tanzania field trip. The authors would like to express their gratitude to: Godfrey Mkongo (NDRS, Tanzania) for his hospitality, cooperation, and permission to carry out the experiments at NDRS, Geert Aschermann (TU Berlin, Germany) for assistance with conducting experiments in the field trial, Dow Chemical for generously donating many NF/RO modules, and GE Power & Water (Zenon) for the provision of the UF module.
Keywords
- defluoridation
- energy consumption
- membranes
- nanofiltration
- reverse osmosis
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Energy
