Sun and Sea: UConn Professor Advances in National Solar Desalination Contest
University of Connecticut professor of Chemical & Biomolecular engineering Jeff McCutcheon is a quarter finalist in the American-Made Challenges: Solar Desalination Prize administered by the U.S. Department of Energy.
High salinity brines from oil and gas production, mining and industrial wastewaters are challenging to treat with conventional desalination technologies. Scientists have been working on various techniques to use solar energy to drive desalination processes.
“A real opportunity for solar thermal distillation technology is in the treatment of brines that are not treatable by conventional desalination technologies, like reverse osmosis,” McCutcheon says.
