Dielectrophoretic Extraction of Water Enhanced by Nanostructure Technology

About 18% of all in-plant energy use in the United States is consumed by thermally-driven dewatering technologies, which not only consume large quantities of energy and but also require significant space and capital investment. This project will develop a new dewatering technology, based on the direct enforcement of water-molecule drift in a gradient electrical field and on the condensation of vapor on a structure with reversible wetting ability. A modular structure would allow maintenance, repair, and even replacement of single modules without shutting down the entire system. In Phase I, a proof-of-concept prototype will be designed, and the capability to extract water from the liquid product will be demonstrated. The prototype will be tested in order to define the capability of the technology and its commercial promise. Commercial Applications and Other Benefits as described by the awardee: The new dewatering technology could be easily scaled by multiplying the modules. Thus, a wide range of applications would exist, from the concentration of juices (high water content) to the dewatering of coal powder (low water content). Because the extracted water passes through an evaporation stage, the proposed technique could be used for the distillation of seawater. Other uses may include both large federal projects (distillers, power plants, rehabilitation of the environment) and smaller commercial applications (food processing, dewatering of biomass, pharmaceuticals and other biotechnical production, and the chemical industry).