One of the available solutions to water scarcity is desalination, but it has drawbacks of being energy-intensive, costly, and bad for the environment. Biological desalination might be a better method that grants no harm to the environment. Reducing the concentration of salts (especially NaCl) in the water is the main objective. CU team is working on two approaches: Accumulating the salt inside the microbial cell by improving the sequestration of sodium and chloride ions and modifying the cells not to release the salts, and overcome the toxic effect of salts on the cell by expressing osmoprotectants and by increasing vacuoles uptake of the salts. The second approach is to synthesize Cell-free Na and Cl binding proteins to avoid the drawbacks of introducing modified microorganisms into the water. The system is meant to be integrated as a pre-treatment step in the current desalination infrastructure.
