GIST(Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, President   Young Joon Kim) Prof. In S. Kim(School of Environmental Science and Engineering), Executive Director of the Center for Seawater Desalination Plant attended a desalination workshop held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, hosted by the R&D Committee of International Desalination Association (IDA) from March 17~19.

    The workshop was put together by IDA for the purpose of facilitating technology exchange, information sharing and network-building among countries, and was attended by the heads of the world’s renowned research institutes in the field of seawater desalination, such as the Water Desalination and Reuse Center (WDRC) of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the Singapore Membrane Technology Center.

    At the workshop, Executive Director Kim of the Center of Seawater Desalination Plant discussed with expert participants from other countries ways to invigorate technical cooperation and network-building, and Korea was designated as the host of the next workshop. As such, the workshop laid a foundation that Korea’s seawater desalination technology of reverse osmosis can broaden its reach in the global marketplace.

    * The Center for Seawater Desalination Plant was established in 2006 (total budget: 90.6 billion won) in order to develop technologies to construct seawater desalination plants of reverse osmosis, featured by three elements: low energy, large-scale and low fouling. The Center is carrying out research in order to complete a 45,000 ton test bed by the end of the its project in August.