The International Desalination Association has announced the recipients of the Best Papers and Emerging Leaders Achievement Awards this month's IDA World Congress.
Five awards for Best Papers are presented at each IDA World Congress, and awards were conferred in five categories, with each winner receiving a prize of US$5,000.
The 2013 winners are:
Best Oral Presentation / Thermal Desalination and Water Reuse: Dr. Guillermo Zaragoza, Plataforma Solar de Almeria, Spain, for "Experimental Comparison of Different Prototypes of Solar Energy Driven Membrane Distillation Systems"
Best Oral Presentation / Membrane Desalination and Water Reuse: Nuria Pena Garcia, Genesys Membrane Products, Spain, for "Study of the Physical and Chemical Damage on Reverse Osmosis Membranes Detected by Autopsies"
Best Oral Presentation / General Topic of Desalination and Water Reuse: Lucina Equihua, Degrémont, Mexico, for "Successful Story to Develop a Multiple Water Reuse Project and Its Framework"
Best Oral Presentation / Young Leader (presented & coauthored by a member of IDA’s Young Leaders Program): Ronan McGovern, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA, for "Design and Optimization of Hybrid ED-RO Systems for the Treatment of Highly Saline Brines"
Best Poster Presentation / General Topic of Desalination and Water Reuse: Professor Anastasios Karabelas, Center for Research and Technology-Hellas (CERTH), Greece, for "Monitoring the Membrane Scaling Propensity of Retentate in Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants"
In addition, Miguel Galvez of NBD Nanotechnologies, USA, is the recipient of the 2013 Emerging Leaders Achievement Award in Desalination and Water Reuse.
The 2013 award, which also carries a monetary prize of US$5,000, was sponsored by IDA’s Regional Affiliate, Water Desalination Engineering Chapter (WDEC) in support of the Young Leaders Program (YLP) growth initiative. This award was introduced at the 2011 IDA World Congress in Perth, Australia. It is open to members of the IDA Young Leaders Program and recognises the recipient’s contribution to the desalination and water reuse industry as well as his or her track record of leadership.
All the awards were conferred at the conclusion of the 2013 IDA World Congress on Desalination and Water Reuse held during October 20-25 in Tianjin, China.
The IDA is a non-profit association that serves more than 2,400 'core members' in 60 countries and reaches an additional 4,000 affiliate members.
