Desalination specialist Trevi Systems is looking to raise $10 million through a Series B funding round, in order to commercialise its thermal forward osmosis treatment process.

The new funding follows the completion on Monday this week of a £10 million equity placement for UK-based forward osmosis technology provider Modern Water.

Trevi, which raised $1 million via a Series A round last October, recently completed a series of tests with the US Navy – independently verified by Carollo Engineers (energy) and NSF International (water quality) – which showed that electrical energy consumption at its small-scale 1m³/d pilot plant was 1kWh/m³.

CEO John Webley told GWI that more efficient pump applications on a large-scale commercial system could reduce this figure further to around 0.2kWh/m³.

The fact that Trevi’s thermal system operates at 70°C also allows it to act as a hedge against increasing energy costs, by using low-grade waste heat as an energy source.