Improved water desalination with Aquaporin

Aquaporins are proteins found in living cells, which facilitate highly efficient water transport in and out of the cells. Synthetic aquaporin films can also be formed to potentially improve water desalination at reduced operational costs and low energy consumption. The Environment and Water Industry (EWI), Programme Office of Singapore funded a research project to develop such a product and ultimately make it available for commercial use in Singapore. As part of a collaborative effort between us, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Aquaporin A/S, we brought our expertise in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to the table. In so doing, we contributed to an increased understanding of the water flow through the polymer membrane. The results will be used to optimise the experimental procedures in aquaporin polymer membrane production.