Self-Powered Desalination Battery for Individual Soldiers

Current soldier Individual Water Treatment Devices (IWTD’s) are limited to use with freshwater sources since they lack desalination capabilities. State of the art desalination technologies such as reverse osmosis are too energy intensive and heavy for individual soldier applications. Lynntech has developed a desalination battery that removes salts from feed water as it discharges which eliminates the need for an external power source. The technology has already been demonstrated to achieve >99.6% salt removal from both brackish and seawater sources. The overall objective of the Phase I project is to adapt the desalination battery design for individual soldier use. When combined with existing IWTD components, the proposed desalination battery can provide a universal water purification device capable of treating any source water. During the Phase I, Lynntech will develop and test prototype desalination batteries with a target desalination rate of 1 L/hr, weight of <1 lb, and treatment capacity of 135 L. The Phase II effort will focus on manufacturability and field testing of prototypes.