Strategic alliance delivers desalination energy savings

Combining engineering expertise and advanced membrane technology

Between them, the two companies aim to deliver what they call a new class of water treatment systems. INEXA brings experience in seawater desalination plant design and performance optimisation, with IonClear adding reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membrane technology innovation.

Together, the alliance will operate in desalination, reclamation, and reuse applications worldwide. Specifically, the partners will focus on designing and building systems that help operators produce more clean water with less energy, extend equipment life, and reduce environmental impact. The systems will be engineered to meet the wide range of specifications required by varying feedwater conditions, whether seawater, brackish sources, or industrial process water. 

Cady Yu, CEO, IonClear, told Aquatech Online: “Our offering is customised to meet the unique requirements of each end user, ensuring a performance-based system design tailored to specific project needs. By leveraging our membrane products, integrated system design, engineering, and production capabilities, we can assist end users in reducing both their operational and initial investment costs while enhancing operational consistency and achieving higher recovery rates.”

She added: “Our shared goal is to develop systems that produce clean water more efficiently, consume less energy, extend the lifespan of equipment, and minimise environmental impact. Through our partnership, we strive to deliver exceptional value and sustainable solutions for every project.”

 

Membranes and energy savings

The alliance specialises in providing water treatment solutions for a diverse array of water types, including seawater, brackish water, process water, brine water and reclaimed water tailored for various applications. 

Yu added: “Our alliance is capable of managing projects of a wide range of scales, with a few thousand cubic meters per day to a maximum treatment capacity of up to 300,000 cubic meters per day. We are equipped to adapt to different project requirements, ensuring flexibility to meet the specific needs of each client.”

Fernando J. Suárez Pérez, CEO of INEXA, told the media: “By uniting our strengths, we are not just improving large-scale desalination projects, we are redefining their economics and scalability. These water solutions are not only more efficient, but also more adaptable to the unique demands of each location and application.”

Together, the integration of each company’s expertise supports sustainable water management through recycling, reclamation, and reuse, ensuring that more water is recovered from the same resources while reducing waste streams and moving towards a zero liquid discharge (ZLD) future.

 

Pilot projects prove energy efficiencies

Early pilots have produced encouraging results, including for one client which specialises in lithium battery cathode material manufacturing. 

Early-stage data from joint projects shows:

• 15 to 20 per cent reduction in energy consumption; lowering the single largest operating cost for plant owners
• Up to 40 per cent increase in membrane lifespan, reducing replacement frequency and associated downtime.
• Significantly lower unplanned outages, improving production consistency and operational reliability.

 

Future efficiencies

With desalination increasingly seen as one of the key technologies to address the growing problem of water scarcity, attention is turning to ways of addressing the high costs involved, the intensive energy demand, and the issue of waste.

When projected to the scale of the largest desalination plants now being built, the alliance’s pilot project gains have the potential to deliver multi-million-dollar annual operating savings, while reducing environmental impact, resulting in accelerated payback periods and stronger long-term ROI.

Yu added: “This alliance accelerates our vision of maximising water recovery and minimising waste. With integrated design, engineering, and production capabilities, we can offer a level of system optimisation few, if any, in the market can match.”