The worlds largest demonstrator of a revolutionary energy system in desalination for drinking water production is in operation. MIDES uses Microbial Desalination Cells (MDC) in a pre-treatment step for reverse osmosis (RO), for simultaneous saline stream desalination and wastewater treatment. MDCs are based on bio-electro-chemical technology, in which biological wastewater treatment can be coupled to the desalination of a saline stream using ion exchange membranes without external energy input. MDCs simultaneously treat wastewater and perform desalination using the energy contained in the wastewater. In fact, an MDC can produce around 1.8 kWh of bioelectricity from the energy contained in 1 m3 of wastewater. Compared to traditional RO, more than 3 kWh/m3 of electrical energy is saved. With this novel technology, two low-quality water streams (saline stream, wastewater) are transformed into two high-quality streams (desalinated water, treated wastewater) suitable for further uses. An exhaustive scaling-up process was carried out in which all MIDES partners worked together on nanostructured electrodes, antifouling membranes, electrochemical reactor design and optimization, life cycle assessment, microbial electrochemistry and physiology expertise, and process engineering and control. The roadmap of the lab-MDC upscaling goes through the assembly of a pre-pilot MDC, towards the development of the demonstrator of the MDC technology (patented). Nominal desalination rate between 4-11 Lm-2h-1 is reached with a current efficiency of 40 %. After the scalability success, two MDC pilot plants were designed and constructed consisting of one stack of 15 MDC pilot units with a 0.4 m2 electrode area per unit. This book presents the information generated throughout the EU funded MIDES project and includes the latest developments related to desalination of sea water and brackish water by applying microbial desalination cells.

This textbook covers the fundamentals of fouling and scaling in reverse osmosis systems. It includes theory and practice of pre-treatment, fouling and scaling in reverse osmosis applied for drinking and industrial water production. The impact of the water source – seawater, river water, brackish groundwater and (treated domestic) waste water – will be discussed in depth. The book presents the knowledge and experience gained at IHE Delft over the last 25 years during the implementation of the master programme in Water Supply Engineering and during the implementation of state-of-the-art research in understanding and solving operational problems in full scale desalination plants. It presents the expert knowledge of IHE Delft in the areas of pre-treatment for reverse osmosis systems, assessment of water quality with respect to fouling potential, development of methods for quality assessment, modified fouling index ultrafiltration at constant flux, transparent exopolymer particles, antiscalant dose optimization, biological growth potential), algal blooms, scaling control. The book will be used in the annual master programme at IHE Delft and it will be of interest for students, academics, engineers and managers in drinking water facilities all over the world.