By Amresh Gunasingham

WATER-TECHNOLOGY developer GE Water has twinned itself with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to come up with ways to make water safe to drink and economical to produce.

The two sides will do research in a new $150 million centre located in NUS' engineering faculty. The NUS-GE Singapore Water Technology Centre, to be officially opened next Monday, is GE Water's first collaboration with an Asia-Pacific university.

This puts the 2,700 sq m facility smack within a region where up to 90 per cent of countries do not have adequate technology to provide safe, drinkable water, according to Professor Michael Saunders, the director of the NUS Environmental Research Institute.

The water technology resulting from the research has 'exceptional' market potential regionally, he said.

Parts of China for example, have access only to extremely contaminated water, he noted. 'That's a market, that's a critical need. But we have to look at making these systems much cheaper.'

The pool of 37 scientists and engineers of the centre will eventually be expanded to about 100.

Researchers will seek up to $70 million in government funding for their work, said Professor Barry Halliwell, deputy president (Research and Technology) NUS.

Research will focus on designing seawater desalination systems that do not need large amounts of energy to run or which use solar or other sources of power; they will also research methods of purifying and reusing water.

GE Water's general manager for the Asia-Pacific, Mr Kevin Cassidy, said state-of-the-art desalination systems require a relatively large amount of energy to run - roughly 3 kilowatt-hour for each cubic metre - which many countries can ill afford.

He offered this as an indication of the level of efficiency being sought after: 'If we put 100 litres of water through a high-pressure system, currently, we may get 95 litres of clean water. We want to find ways to get 98 or even 99 litres of clean water.'

Prof Saunders said having an industry-university partnership was critical for universities to be successful in the next decade or two.

It allows universities to do more and gives their students research opportunities that put them 'closer to the real world', he added.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.