Desalination & Brine Concentration
E-METS is revolutionizing desalination and brine concentration by integrating membrane distillation (MD) with enhanced flow evaporation, creating an energy-efficient, high-recovery solution. Our technology maximizes water extraction from high-salinity sources while reducing environmental impact and operational costs by recovering up to 90% of fresh water per unit volume of seawater feed (depending on the inlet feed salinity) to significantly reducing brine discharge during the desalination process. Lower brine discharge volume can lead to reduced disposal costs, particularly in regions with strict environmental regulations. Deploying E-METS for brine concentration can help lower the operational costs (OPEX) of existing desalination plants, ultimately reducing the cost of producing desalinated water. For small-scale desalination systems (capacity of up to 500 m³/day), E-METS offers a highly competitive pricing advantage over small-scale seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) systems.
Industrial Waste-Water Treatment (IWWT)
Most industrial wastewater treatment providers are SMEs that integrate proven technologies like ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, forward osmosis, and evaporators to achieve Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD). E-METS can concentrate industrial effluents, such as calcium chloride from chemical industries, enabling process water recovery and effluent reuse or resale, supporting a circular economy.
Competitive advantage
- Low operating cost
- Robustness and modularity
- Water recycling
- Rare resource extraction
Materials Recovery & Lithium Extraction
The problem
The conventional Lithium mining process is not only creating a huge environmental impact in the regions of operation, high CAPEX and a lengthy cycle time for brine concentration leading to the production of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent LCE. The lengthy cycle time is due to staged atmospheric evaporation carried out in massive evaporation ponds.
The Environmental Impact
Salars or Salt flats are located in water scarce regions surrounded by mountains or located in a desert. Conventional Salar brine concentration process involves the construction of massive evaporation ponds, used to slowly evaporate water from the Lithium rich brine. In the process, this involves the followings:
Excessive use of freshwater resources in water scare regions.
Massive loss of water into the atmosphere through atmospheric solar evaporation.
Huge land area spanning hundreds and/or thousands of square kilometers to construct evaporation ponds.
Ecological destruction by turning lakes into salt deserts.
E-METS Lithium Brine Concentration
E-METS for Lithium recovery from Salars/Salt flats is highly attractive, reducing the CAPEX and OPEX of LCE production by directly concentrating the Lithium rich brine from its source, i.e., Lithium rich brine aquifers. Recovered distillate (potable water) can be re-supplied to the municipal or community nearby to relief water stress. E-METS resolves the water scarcity issue, reduces the CAPEX and OPEX for Lithium mining operations, promotes a circular economy and generate additional revenue through re-sale of produced fresh water to the municipal or community.