UTEP student develops award-winning method to desalinate water
El Paso, TEXAS (KVIA) -- A University of El Paso undergraduate student developed a new technique that converts 90% of salt, or brine, water to fresh water. Tayia Oddonetto was inspired by her professor to solve water scarcity.
“During class, the professor said that if someone discovered how to turn brine, water with a high salt concentration, into something of value, it’d be revolutionary for the planet,” said Oddonetto. “At that moment, I told myself I was going to be the one who found the solution for brine, and that thought has never left me.”
Oddonetto’s UTEP research on brine desalination earned her first place as well as funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Centers Perfect Pitch Competition. Oddonetto, who is now a doctoral student in environmental science and engineering, specifically developed and pitched salt-free, electrodialysis metathesis, a novel approach to the desalination of brine, or salt, water. The technique is described in the December 2024 issue of the journal Desalination.
Salt-free electrodialysis metathesis treats brine by passing it through ion exchange membranes, thin sheets or films, and electrical currents that work to separate salt from water at the molecular level, according to the UTEP research.
“Tayia’s research will help public utilities save money while enabling people nationwide to reduce their utility bills in a meaningful way, advancing society's aim of water conservation,” said Ivonne Santiago, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at UTEP and Oddonetto’s doctoral advisor. “
Oddonetto’s next steps in her research are to advance her work with multiple live experiments run in collaboration with the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), El Paso Water, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Desalination plant, and the New Mexico State University and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation.
According to UTEP, the experiments will serve to refine the salt-free electrodialysis metathesis process further and provide more insight as to the mechanisms that can be used to make the approach more cost-efficient and easily applicable on a large scale.
