Grant: Applied Research and Development Grants - Level 2

The Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) is collaborating with Volker Stevin Canada (VSC) to assess the upgrading of an innovative Electrodialytic (ED) desalination system, which treats salty wastewater and demonstrates superior hydrogen generation and power production during its desalination operations. Volker Stevin Highways Ltd. (VSHL) is a subsidiary of VSC, and its core business focus is local highway transportation networks, infrastructure and construction in Alberta. VSHL previously initiated a lab-scale project in collaboration with SAIT over 10 years ago to investigate and develop an electro-membrane technology which utilizes specialty cation and anion electro-membrane cell pairs with spacers to enhance the separation for water from highly salty water to produce clean water from the run-off water collected in lined retention ponds during their winter road de-icing operations. This collaboration utilized SAIT's applied research expertise and resources in water and waste water treatment, process engineering and chemical technology to develop a novel process funded by the VSC and National Research Council-Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP). The main goal of the proposed project is to integrate and assess compatible new and clean technologies for the design and upgrade of the original VSC ED desalination system and will entail the evaluation of technology development of three modular sub-systems: a novel class of electrodialysis stacks associated with shock-electrodialysis, power generation using novel solid oxide fuel cells and power storage using energy storage batteries.