One of the grand challenges for modern societies to sustain is to develop low-energy solutions for low-cost water production, preferably based on renewable source of energy. Sustainable water supply and sanitation is fundamental to the food security, health, survival, societal well-being and economic growth in developing countries, especially in the Middle East and Africa. By 2050, the population of in the Middle East and North Africa will double and is expected to grow to over 700 million. This growth will, likely, increase challenges to municipalities attempting to provide access to water supply and sanitation (WSS).
The IDEA concept is the development of a solar powered zero / liquid discharge / Integrated DEsalination MembrAne system to address the needs for water of the Mediterranean region.
The IDEA project aims at developing a low energy consumption desalination system, which combines different membranes and technologies with minimum environmental impact, low cost, re-utilization of waste and high efficiency. Its objective will be the development of a highly innovative Membrane Distillation desalination unit plant, with drastically reduced energy demand of the order of 2kWh/m3, taking advantage of the existence of highly innovative NF and MD membranes recently developed by the IDEA partners. These membranes will be either macroporous polymeric hollow fiber membranes, aligned nanotube NF membranes, self-standing or supported GO membranes.

In parallel predictive models for the sorption and permeance of water through nanopores, based on the confinement phenomena in nanopores, will be developed and validated against experimental measurements, optimizing, therefore, the novel water treatment process and developing sustainable membranes and modules.