KACST announces new desalination technology from Saudi Arabia

King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology (KACST) has announced the completed implementation of the first worldwide adsorption water desalination and cooling plant.

The project began in April 2014 and was finished in August 2016. Plant development came about through an agreement among King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), TAQNIA (Saudi Investment Company) and the Singapore company currently holding the patent pending rights to the technology, Medad Technologies.

The technology behind adsorption desalination and cooling (ADC) was recently developed and is co-owned by National University of Singapore (NUS) and KAUST. The innovative system allows for the treating of seawater, brine water and other highly polluted industrial wastewater with a minimal amount of pretreatment, low energy use of below 1.2 KWh/m3, and low OPEX costs of less than $0.40/m3.

More than 120 countries across the globe utilize the desalination plants, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, Cape Verde, Portugal, Greece, Italy, India, China, Japan and Australia.

The UAE provides more than 80 percent of all drinkable water from seawater desalination plants. Saudi Arabia, however, is the largest region producing desalinated water. UAE is second largest.

MEDAD, which served as the general contractor, partnered with KACST and NET, a Polish company that complete all aspects of engineering, installation tasks and manufacturing. Engineers and researchers from KACST took part from beginning through completion in all aspects of modeling, designing, manufacturing and installation.  

ADC Plant is currently the world’s largest existing adsorption chiller installation, with a desalinated water production up to 100m3 per day and cooling capacity of up to 1MW. The plant was brought to life through the collaboration of KAUST and KACST developing the semi-industrial scale plant in KACST Solar Village.