An HNEI-led team, in partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Uppsala University (Sweden), has been selected among the winners in the first two stages of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Waves to Water Prize competition (https://www.herox.com/wavestowater) and is currently preparing its submission for the competition’s third stage, in which designs are to be adapted to the ultimate demonstration site along the coast of North Carolina.
Team Nalu e Wai (Hawaiian for “waves into fresh water”) is led by HNEI researchers Patrick Cross and Krishnakumar Rajagopalan, and PhD student Nicholas Ulm, but with critical contributions from the international partners. In response to the DOE challenge, the team has developed a light weight, easily transportable (fits in a container of roughly 1 cubic meter) wave energy converter that can be rapidly deployed in disaster response scenarios. It utilizes the surge motion of the waves near shore to drive a flap that in turns drives a hydraulic cylinder that pumps seawater through a reverse osmosis desalination system, producing fresh water that can be collected onshore.
› UH News article: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2020/10/26/wave-energy-desalination-system/
› IndiaToday magazine article: https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/education-today/news/story/iit-madras-team-wins-us-energy-dept-s-waves-to-water-prize-1728562-2020-10-05
