The concept of osmotic power is based on the principles of osmosis, the same process that helps plants draw water from soil and allows human cells to stay hydrated. Osmotic energy can be generated as water moves from areas with low salt concentration (fresh water) to areas with high salt concentration (seawater) through a special membrane.
To capture this “blue energy,” ions migrate from the saltier side to the less salty side of the membrane in pursuit of equilibrium. The movement of water and ions generates a pressure differential that can be harnessed to drive a turbine to produce electricity. To maximize the impact, the Japanese plant uses concentrated seawater — the brine left after removal of fresh water in the nearby desalination plant.
Osmotic power, now viewed by the World Economic Forum as one of the ten emerging technologies to watch in 2025, emerged in the 1970s in response to the first Earth Day.
The simple reason, as explained recently by Nicolas Heuzé, whose company Sweetch Energy is working to bring the technology to scale, is that “osmotic power is clean, completely natural, available 24 hours a day in all coastal zones, can be turned on almost instantly and modulated very easily.”
Kenji Hirokawa, director of the Seawater Desalination Center, which operates the Fukuoka plant, boasts that osmotic power produces no carbon dioxide and is completely renewable. Because oceans and seas are virtually boundless, and desalination is increasingly being relied upon for freshwater supplies, osmotic power is a stable source of electricity that can operate 24/7/365 – unlike wind and solar.
The first osmotic energy researchers were unable to design membranes efficient enough for effective ion exchange — a crucial process for net energy production. In 2009, Norway’s state-owned green energy company Statkraft launched an osmotic energy demonstrator; it ceased operations in 2013 due to concerns about economic viability and insufficient energy output.
In 2014, the Dutch company Redstack installed a demonstration plant that operates on a very small scale on a dike. But the first company to open a fully functioning osmotic power plant was the Danish venture firm SaltPower. The plant, located at Nobians saltworks in Mariager, Denmark, uses hollow-fiber forward osmosis (FO) membranes manufactured by the 150-year-old Japanese firm Toyobo Co., Ltd.
Toyobo, which began in 1882 as a cotton spinning operation, today manufactures, processes, and sells various products in the fields of film, life sciences, environmental and functional materials, and functional textiles. In the 1970s, Toyobo developed a hollow-fiber semi-permeable membrane that permeates water molecules — but not molecules and ions above a certain size — by applying a spinning technology the company had developed in its textile production business.
For years, Toyobo has sold the product to desalination plants as a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane for converting seawater into fresh water. Its RO membranes are currently used to produce about 1.6 million tons per day of fresh water, enough for about 6.4 million people.
The Toyobo membranes being used at the SaltPower facility have excellent pressure resistance and can operate under the high operating pressure required for efficient osmotic power generation and maintain high power generation efficiency.
At the Danish plant, concentrated saltwater is pumped from underground rock salt deposits after water is fed from aboveground into the salt layers via hydraulic pumps. The facility produces about 100 kilowatt-hours of power from mixing the near-saturated saltwater pumped from the saltworks with fresh water via the membrane.
SaltPower plans to actively promote osmotic power plants using Toyobo’s FO membranes at other sites across Europe — without the need for seawater. Saltworks using solution mining and the chlor alkali industry can benefit immediately. Osmotic power can also be used to generate energy when building salt caverns for seasonal storage for hydrogen.
Professor Sandra Kentish, a chemical engineer at the University of Melbourne, says the chief obstacle to osmotic energy’s commercial viability is that a lot of energy is lost in pumping the two streams (saltwater and freshwater) into the power plant and from the frictional loss across the membranes. Incremental gains have been achieved — and the Fukuoka plant will provide a true test of whether constant osmotic power is ready to compete with intermittent wind and solar.
Interest in osmotic power is growing. Besides the small Danish plant and the larger Japanese facility, pilot projects are under way in Norway, South Korea, Spain, and Qatar — though an Australian prototype plant at the University of Technology Sydney has not reopened since it was shuttered during the COVID pandemic.
At the launch of the Fukuoka facility, Akihiko Tanioka, professor emeritus at the Institute of Science Tokyo and a pioneer in the field, said, “I feel overwhelmed that we have been able to put this into practical use. I hope it spreads not just in Japan, but across the world.”
With the heavy push from the World Economic Forum (WEF), funding for further research into making osmotic energy production more efficient is likely to increase. Such gains are not unprecedented, as exemplified by the auto industry’s successes in increasing engine efficiency.
Wherever fresh water meets saltwater (or wherever there are salt mines) there is potential for osmotic power. With growing worldwide demand for electric energy, osmotic energy could — if power losses can be brought lower — meet up to 15% of global energy demand by 2050, according to some estimates. That would make osmotic energy the largest untapped renewable resource on Earth.
Carbon-free. 24/7/365. No mining (salt mines excluded) involved. Available anywhere fresh water and saltwater meet. Works in conjunction with desalination plants. What’s not to like — at the right price?
Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. This article was sourced HERE
To capture this “blue energy,” ions migrate from the saltier side to the less salty side of the membrane in pursuit of equilibrium. The movement of water and ions generates a pressure differential that can be harnessed to drive a turbine to produce electricity. To maximize the impact, the Japanese plant uses concentrated seawater — the brine left after removal of fresh water in the nearby desalination plant.
Osmotic power, now viewed by the World Economic Forum as one of the ten emerging technologies to watch in 2025, emerged in the 1970s in response to the first Earth Day.
The simple reason, as explained recently by Nicolas Heuzé, whose company Sweetch Energy is working to bring the technology to scale, is that “osmotic power is clean, completely natural, available 24 hours a day in all coastal zones, can be turned on almost instantly and modulated very easily.”
Kenji Hirokawa, director of the Seawater Desalination Center, which operates the Fukuoka plant, boasts that osmotic power produces no carbon dioxide and is completely renewable. Because oceans and seas are virtually boundless, and desalination is increasingly being relied upon for freshwater supplies, osmotic power is a stable source of electricity that can operate 24/7/365 – unlike wind and solar.
The first osmotic energy researchers were unable to design membranes efficient enough for effective ion exchange — a crucial process for net energy production. In 2009, Norway’s state-owned green energy company Statkraft launched an osmotic energy demonstrator; it ceased operations in 2013 due to concerns about economic viability and insufficient energy output.
In 2014, the Dutch company Redstack installed a demonstration plant that operates on a very small scale on a dike. But the first company to open a fully functioning osmotic power plant was the Danish venture firm SaltPower. The plant, located at Nobians saltworks in Mariager, Denmark, uses hollow-fiber forward osmosis (FO) membranes manufactured by the 150-year-old Japanese firm Toyobo Co., Ltd.
Toyobo, which began in 1882 as a cotton spinning operation, today manufactures, processes, and sells various products in the fields of film, life sciences, environmental and functional materials, and functional textiles. In the 1970s, Toyobo developed a hollow-fiber semi-permeable membrane that permeates water molecules — but not molecules and ions above a certain size — by applying a spinning technology the company had developed in its textile production business.
For years, Toyobo has sold the product to desalination plants as a reverse osmosis (RO) membrane for converting seawater into fresh water. Its RO membranes are currently used to produce about 1.6 million tons per day of fresh water, enough for about 6.4 million people.
The Toyobo membranes being used at the SaltPower facility have excellent pressure resistance and can operate under the high operating pressure required for efficient osmotic power generation and maintain high power generation efficiency.
At the Danish plant, concentrated saltwater is pumped from underground rock salt deposits after water is fed from aboveground into the salt layers via hydraulic pumps. The facility produces about 100 kilowatt-hours of power from mixing the near-saturated saltwater pumped from the saltworks with fresh water via the membrane.
SaltPower plans to actively promote osmotic power plants using Toyobo’s FO membranes at other sites across Europe — without the need for seawater. Saltworks using solution mining and the chlor alkali industry can benefit immediately. Osmotic power can also be used to generate energy when building salt caverns for seasonal storage for hydrogen.
Professor Sandra Kentish, a chemical engineer at the University of Melbourne, says the chief obstacle to osmotic energy’s commercial viability is that a lot of energy is lost in pumping the two streams (saltwater and freshwater) into the power plant and from the frictional loss across the membranes. Incremental gains have been achieved — and the Fukuoka plant will provide a true test of whether constant osmotic power is ready to compete with intermittent wind and solar.
Interest in osmotic power is growing. Besides the small Danish plant and the larger Japanese facility, pilot projects are under way in Norway, South Korea, Spain, and Qatar — though an Australian prototype plant at the University of Technology Sydney has not reopened since it was shuttered during the COVID pandemic.
At the launch of the Fukuoka facility, Akihiko Tanioka, professor emeritus at the Institute of Science Tokyo and a pioneer in the field, said, “I feel overwhelmed that we have been able to put this into practical use. I hope it spreads not just in Japan, but across the world.”
With the heavy push from the World Economic Forum (WEF), funding for further research into making osmotic energy production more efficient is likely to increase. Such gains are not unprecedented, as exemplified by the auto industry’s successes in increasing engine efficiency.
Wherever fresh water meets saltwater (or wherever there are salt mines) there is potential for osmotic power. With growing worldwide demand for electric energy, osmotic energy could — if power losses can be brought lower — meet up to 15% of global energy demand by 2050, according to some estimates. That would make osmotic energy the largest untapped renewable resource on Earth.
Carbon-free. 24/7/365. No mining (salt mines excluded) involved. Available anywhere fresh water and saltwater meet. Works in conjunction with desalination plants. What’s not to like — at the right price?
Duggan Flanakin is a Senior Policy Analyst with the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow. This article was sourced HERE
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