The water supply in many countries in Southeast Asia, such as Myanmar, Cambodia and Vietnam is being threatened by rapid rising population and climate change. The rising sea levels and the increase in extreme weather conditions (tidal waves) lead to an increased salinization of groundwater and surface water.

In addition, the groundwater in Vietnam shows high arsenic concentrations, a highly poisonous substance which is naturally washed out of sedimentary rocks.

The solutions provided by WAKAP project

– Development of an innovative, energy-efficient modular combined process of arsenic removal and desalination of brackish groundwater and seawater.
– The combination of two technologies, capacitive deionization (CDI) and reverse osmosis (RO) shall reduce the energy consumption for the desalination of seawater and improve significantly the water recovery.
– A subsurface in-situ remediation as pretreatment upfront of desalination by CDI shall remove arsenic and other problematic substance.