The current global warming is changing our severely over-populated and very thirsty world (estimated to reach over 10 billion by 2050) in ways most people cannot imagine. The climate crisis is severely impacting our world and it is entirely possible that Global Water Security will never be achieved unless drastic action is taken to develop new and novel  desalination technologies (leading in turn to human conflicts over water resources).

MIKROEN develops distillation-based desalination technology, including portable desalination devices that can be used by people outside the power grid at every corner of the globe. This intense thermal technology generates pure drinking water through distillation from any tainted water sources including super saline and industrially polluted waters. Mikroen overcomes one of the most significant limitations of Reverse Osmosis desalination technology: the incapability to desalinate saline waters containing more than 50 gr/L of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). Mikroen desalination devices possess the capability to desalinate super saline brines containing 200-250 gr/L TDS or more.

The underlying principle of Mikroen’s desalination technology (and to a large extent wastewater treatment) consists of a forced Thermal Distillation process via passing a liquid (tainted, saline and/or wastewater) through a series of super-heated coils in continuous flow format until the liquid turns into vapour. The vapour then is re-condensed back into a 100% pure water which is collected into a tank for storage or use. The coil reactors (a minimum of four for portable desalinating devices, namely Desalinator in a MatchBox, and as many as several hundred for stagnant desalination plants that can generate hundreds of gallons of water per hour) are typically placed inside microwave chambers in a controlled heat environment that can reach a wide range of temperatures, from 200 ºC to over 1000 ºC. The energy requirements are very low: once the coil reactors are primed to reach the process temperature, only a minimal microwave power, less than 250 watts typically, is required to maintain process parameters.

The process of water distillation and subsequent condensation can be conducted under vacuum or atmospheric pressure conditions. Distillation under vacuum requires lower coil temperatures and is typically employed by desalinating devices for the purpose of generating potable water. This is typically a high throughput process designed to generate high pure water quantities in the shortest possible time while retaining the water purity at a much longer time interval (due to desalination occurring in an isolated environment). The optimal coil temperature can be kept between 200 to 400 ºC depending on the distillation pathway.

Distillation (or intense Thermal Treatment) under atmospheric pressure conditions typically requires higher temperatures and the distilled water would have to be removed and preserved if not consumed immediately to prevent spoiling from air bacteria.