Assoc. Prof. Dr. Derya Yüksel İmer, member of the academic staff of İTÜ Civil Engineering Faculty, Environmental Engineering Department, and his team launched a study aiming at the conversion of sea water into drinking and utility water with a lower cost using sustainable and environmentally-friendly techniques under the scope of the international cooperation between Turkey and Qatar. Under this scope, the team aims at converting the sea water with a lower quality and higher salinity level into drinking water and use water both with a lower cost and higher efficiency level.  

The project titled “Development of the Advanced Membrane Distillation Technology for the Treatment of High Salt Concentration and Desalination of Sea Water” and participated by Hamad Bin Khalifa University and Gebze Technical University with Assoc. Prof. Dr. İmer acting as the coordinator was awarded a joint fund of US$540,000 under the scope of the Preferential Research Program of Qatar National Research Fund.

In a statement she made, İmer said that water scarcity is a basic problem all over the world and suitable technologies must be developed for alternative water sources. She pointed out that the significant dimensions that the industrialization in the world has reached, population increase and climate change increases the pressure on water sources. “Especially the amount of clean and accessible water is diminishing day by day. And our project aims at obtaining drinking and utility water from sea water” said İmer. “The Qatari and Turkish teams try bringing together the technologies whose reliability in terms of obtaining water from sea water was proven. Qatari team gained experience about the thermal desalination technology from some pilot and field studies that it previously conducted and we as the Turkish team have nano-fiber material and highly efficient filters that we use in various separation processes that we have developed. Consequently, with the synergy created by these two dimensions we will realize this project using a double – layer technique that we name thermal and separation technology. Indeed, the ultimate goal of the project is to ensure obtaining drinking and utility water with a high efficiency from sea water. We are able to obtain highly efficient water through thermal systems but the cost of these systems is their biggest disadvantage. We will ensure obtaining clean water of up to 90% of the entering water amount by bringing together the advantage and disadvantage of those technologies”.  

İmer added that high amount of salt flow is given into the sea again during the process of the conversion of sea water into clean water and consequently the sea ecological system is negatively affected. “The technique that we will develop with our project will ensure the control of the flow returning to the sea in order not to allow it to make a pressure on the eco-system based on a more environmentally-friendly and sustainable understanding. Consequently, we actually try developing a totally environmentally-friendly and sustainable desalination technology” she said, underlining that it will be possible to use the drinking water that they will obtain from sea water in all areas.