The facilities of the Canary Islands Institute of Technology (ITC) in Pozo Izquierdo welcomed the visit of Nikolay Voutchkov, Executive Director of Water Innovation Center and the Eng. Salman Arab.
This Center is part of NEOM Saudi Arabian megacity project designed to be a futuristic, high-tech, and sustainable urban development. Following the purpose of applying circular economy and clean energy concepts to this large-scale urban development project, they showed interest in the results of ITC, within the DESAL+ LIVING LAB, particularly those related to efficient desalination and brine valorisation testbed facilities – in collaboration with the Sociedad de Promoción Económica of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria.
The delegation toured the facilities accompanied by Gonzalo Piernavieja, R&D Director of ITC; Baltasar Peñate, Head of the Water Department; and technical staff involved in the ITC- DESAL+ Living Lab installations. Also invited to the visit some of regional industry desalination stakeholders. During the visit, different avenues of collaboration between both entities were explored, with a special focus on the advances made in the brine valorisation. This testbed enables testing under real conditions, optimisation, and validation of pre-commercial technologies, aiming to drive research and innovation.
This session was supported by the ITC project called IDIWATER, committed to improving the industrial water sector and its connection with other markets, increasing R&D, knowledge transfer, training, and the development of smart technology. The project is 85% co-financed by the European Union under the Interreg MAC 2021–2027 programme.
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