Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE
Water is the most consumed natural resource by the population of 7 billion planet Earth hosts. Reckless use and disposal of this precious resource could soon make it sparse and unfit for any means of consumption. At Fraunhofer ISE, we work towards finding energy efficient and sustainable means to treat non-potable water and recycle reject water, thereby helping to close the gap between water consumption and water replenishment. Research, consulting and development are taken up by the »Group Water Treatment and Separation« on topics ranging from analysis and selection of water treatment technology all the way up to module development and construction.
Given a wide array of subjects we cover, our primary focus lies on water energy nexus projects, mineral and fluid recovery from reject water and membrane technology. The water energy nexus (WEN) subset of the water group is a byproduct of our long-standing expertise and know-how on renewable energy driven desalination, energy water systems and development of autonomous water treatment modules. In the recent past, we have started taking up projects addressing fluid and mineral recovery from reject water in mining and chemical industries, which as of today is another subset of our group activities. Equipped with state of the art membrane testing facilities for ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis as well as technological the top position in the field of membrane distillation, our group conducts tests, simulations, analysis and develops membranes for water treatment and separation applications.
Just after the end of the summer holidays, many people have happy memories of their beach holiday. For the local population, however, seawater unfortunately often doesn’t mean enough water. At least not water that is suitable for use by people. Salt, pollutants and wastewater make this raw material that is essential to life impure. Researchers at Fraunhofer ISE – including myself – have been working for many years to develop innovative methods for solar water treatment.
