Water treatment unit

Fitting inside a standard shipping container, this water treatment facility uses space technology to filter nitrates out of groundwater for the Universtity of Kenitra campus in Morocco.

ESA has been working for over 20 years on the best recipe for a closed life-support system that processes waste and delivers fresh oxygen, food and water to astronauts. One of the discoveries is how to build and control organic and ceramic membranes with holes 700 times finer than a strand of human hair. These tiny pores can filter out unwanted compounds in water, in particular nitrates.

Building on ESA’s experience with membranes, French company Firmus teamed up with Germany’s Belectric to build a self-sustaining unit powered by solar panels and wind energy.

The pilot model in Morocco caters for 1200 students. Surplus energy and water generated during school holidays are shared with locals.

If the membrane approach works well, the unit will be scaled up by a factor of 10 to deliver water to the rest of the local population.