Speaker
Description
The EU-PRIMA project SmaCuMed offers an integrated approach by providing a sustainable and innovative solution for groundwater desalination in the field of smart irrigation. SmaCuMed consists on integrating a novel desalination technology membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) with low-pressure reverse osmosis (LPRO) in an all-in-one “Smart Irrigation Cube” system.
Nowadays, it becomes necessary to evaluate the environmental and socio-economic impacts of a product or a system in order to guarantee its sustainability. In this context, the SmaCuMed project evaluated the socio-economic issues and sustainability of the Smart Irrigation Cube (WP6) using the Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment methodology. Based on a Life Cycle Cost Analysis, the two desalination technologies LPRO and MCDI were compared to identify the most economical option. Different scenarios were defined to assess the potential impacts of the technologies on the production of irrigation water. Based on the cost calculation of 1 m3 of desalinated water, obtained results showed that MCDI is the most economical option when using solar PV. However, increasing the salt removal target to 66% increased the costs to 1.21 EUR/m3 and 1.34 EUR/m3 for LPRO and MCDI, respectively. This highlights the better performance of the MCDI at lower salt removal rates.
