Shortage of fresh water has become one of the major challenges for societies all over the world. Water desalination offers an opportunity to significantly increase the freshwater supply for drinking, industrial use and irrigation. All current desalination technologies require significant electrical or thermal energy, with today's Reverse Osmosis (RO) desalination units consuming electric energy of at least 3 kWh/m3 – in extensive tests about ten years ago, the Affordable Desalination Collaboration (ADC) in California measured 1.6 kWh/m3 for RO power consumption on the best commercially available membranes, and total plant energy about twice as high. To overcome thermodynamical limitations of RO, which point to 1.09 kwh/m3 for seawater at 50 % recovery, Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) concurrently treat wastewater and generate energy to achieve desalination. MDCs can produce around 1.8 kWh of bioelectricity from the handling of 1 m3 of wastewater. Such energy can be directly used to i) totally remove the salt content in seawater without external energy input, or ii) partially reduce the salinity to lower substantially the amount of energy for a subsequent desalination treatment. MIDES aims to develop the World’s largest demonstrator of an innovative and low-energy technology for drinking water production, using MDC technology either as stand-alone or as pre-treatment step for RO. The project will focus on overcoming the current limitations of MDC technology such as low desalination rate, high manufacturing cost, biofouling and scaling problems on membranes, optimization of the microbial-electrochemical process, system scaling up and economic feasibility of the technology. This will be achieved via innovation in nanostructured electrodes, antifouling membranes (using nanoparticles with biocide activity), electrochemical reactor design and optimization, microbial electrochemistry and physiology expertise, and process engineering and control.

Surefit will demonstrate fast-track renovation of existing domestic buildings by integrating innovative, cost-effective, and environmentally conscious prefabricated technologies. This is to reach target of near zero energy through reducing heat losses through building envelope, and energy consumption by heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting, while increasing the share of renewable energy in buildings. This will be achieved through a systematic approach involving key stakeholders (building owners/users, manufacturers, product/services developers) in space heating, cooling, domestic hot water, lighting and power generation, as well as a demonstration phase in 5 representative buildings in different European climates. The technologies will include bio-aerogel panels integrated with phase change materials, photovoltaic (PV) vacuum glazing windows, roof and window heat recovery devices, solar assisted heat pumps/ground source heat pumps, evaporative coolers, integrated solar thermal/PV systems and lighting devices. These will be prefabricated for rapid retrofit with minimal disruption to occupants, ensuring high levels of occupant comfort/indoor environmental quality as well as low risk of moisture-related problems/summer overheating. The work programme will involve optimal sizing and prefabrication of technologies tailored to building design/requirements; retrofitting/monitoring buildings in different climates with support of advanced building energy management systems; analysing indoor environment quality, energy use, user behaviour/acceptance of the solutions; developing methodology, guidelines/effective operational tools for rapid retrofitting and decision-making; and developing business model involving all relevant actors including, public authorities/investors/users and holistic integration of disciplines across the value chain. These outcomes will be delivered by a consortium comprising leading companies, research/public institutions from European countries.