NEWT Center's light-harvesting membranes heat, desalinate water in one step.

The Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $1.7million to a RICE University-led team for further development and field testing of an innovative desalination technology that uses nanoparticles and sunlight to treat water.

Rice's "nanophotonics-enabled solar membrane distillation" technology, or NESMD, is one of the 14 projects funded June 19 through the DOE Solar Energy Technologies Office's Solar Desalination programme.

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