There is a significant and continuous need for safe water, effective sanitation and hygiene equipment to be used by US military forces who must operate around the world, often in locations that do not have infrastructure to sustain those forces. Likewise, there is a need to provide this same equipment during emergency and disaster relief operations, especially in remote locations or in the developing world. This proposal is intended to address the safe water needs of small, mobile US forces with an appropriate size and production capacity desalination system. Specifically, this SBIR effort will develop an innovative, man-portable, low power and reduced maintenance seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) purification system. In order to create a piece of equipment that has low production capacity and truly as small and low-power as possible, new technologies will have to be developed and existing technologies will have to be significantly modified enough to accommodate the extra small size and low production capacity, since this equipment does not currently exist. The safe water equipment described by this Phase II Proposal can be used: to provide effective, mobil, lightweight water treatment in areas of the world during US military operations for US Soldiers and Marines.
