PERU - A Spanish consortium consisting of Tedagua and Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios has started construction on the Provisur water treatment project in Lima. The plant, which has a capacity of 12,960 cubic metres per day, will be the first in Peru to desalinate seawater for domestic use. In addition to the desalination plant, the $95 million project includes 260km of piping, a sewerage treatment plant and a 780m underwater discharge pipeline. The project will benefit 100,000 residents in four coastal districts on the southern outskirts of the city, and is part of a government plan to develop desalination technology in the country’s desert cities, in response to droughts in recent years.^[1]

KENYA – The LAPSSET Authority, which is tasked with improving transport infrastructure between Kenya’s Lamu Port, Ethiopia and South Sudan,  has announced plans to construct a desalination plant in Lamu by next year. The plant is expected to supply at least 3,000 cubic metres per day of water and will be completed within 18 months. Studies of potential sites for the plant are already underway, and the director general of the Authority has stated that while there are still details that have yet to be agreed with the Lamu County government, the project has already received the green light from the national government.^[2]

ISREAL – Israel Chemicals (ICL) completed a sale of its 50 percent holding in water desalination firm IDE Technologies for $167 million. The purchaser is a partnership whose general partner is a company controlled by the CEO of IDE, Avashom Felber, and includes limited partners from Clal Insurance Company Ltd., the Israel Teachers' Union educational funds' group and Ayalon Insurance Company. The remaining 50 percent stake in IDE is owned by the Israeli Delek Group.^[3]

^{An artist’s rendition of bipolar-membrane design for ionic electricity generation. Credit: William White}

Researchers of the University of CALIFORNIA at Irvine have developed an ionic analogue to the traditional electronic (pn-junction) solar cell, which could have applications in direct solar desalination.^[4] The system harnesses light to exploit the semiconductor-like behavior of water and generate ionic electricity. It consists of two ion-exchange membranes that allow water to permeate and function as a pair of chemical gates to attain charge separation, in which one membrane mostly transports cations (positively charged ions), and the other membrane mostly transports anions (negatively charged ions).

The level of electric current that the system can achieve remains its main limitation. While the double-membrane system can at times produce electric currents exceeding 100mV, a photovoltage of 200mV is necessary to desalinate seawater, a target that the researchers are optimistic about hitting in the future.^[5]