Imagine a solar panel that makes clean water instead of electricity. It uses the sun's heat to evaporate dirty or salty water, leaving the grime and salt behind while collecting pure steam as drinking water. It's designed as a simple bag that works using only gravity, making it easy for anyone to use without needing a power grid.
Off-grid communities lack affordable, low-maintenance access to clean water, relying on expensive bottled water or contaminated sources that increase child mortality.
A solar-thermal water purification bag using a low-cost, fouling-resistant membrane and a gravity-flow hydraulic system. A roll-to-roll manufacturing process was also developed for mass production.
If you are an NGO dealing with waterborne diseases in rural areas — this project developed a solar purification bag that can reduce child mortality and provide high quality drinking water from contaminated sources.
If you are a utility provider dealing with expensive off-grid water delivery — this project developed a membrane distillation system that can reduce household expenditure on drinking water by up to 70%.
If you are a manufacturer dealing with high production costs for water filters — this project developed a roll-to-roll manufacturing process for membranes that are over 20x cheaper than existing options.
Customers can save up to 20-40 cents per litre compared to bottled water, and households in rural or coastal areas may see expenditures drop by up to 70%.
Yes, the project developed a roll-to-roll production process and redesigned the purification bag to be 15x larger to enable scaling up.
A patent has been filed with the Dutch Bureau of Intellectual Property covering the design of the water purification bag and the hydraulic system.
The system uses a proprietary non-porous membrane with high fouling resistance, which results in a low maintenance need.
SolarDew aims to provide 1 million people with clean drinking water by 2030.
The project is led by a single Dutch SME, SolarDew Clean Water BV, representing a 100% industry ratio. This lean structure suggests a fast-track commercialization focus, utilizing external partnerships with the SEA Group and the University of Crete for market entry in Chile and Greece rather than a traditional academic consortium.
Contact SolarDew Clean Water BV in the Netherlands
Contact us to explore licensing opportunities for the roll-to-roll membrane production process.
