Institute For Innovation in Water Technologies and Advanced Research

The Institute for Innovation in Water Technologies and Advanced Research, previously known as the Institute for Research, Innovation, and Desalination Technologies, is the entity responsible for developing the desalination industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is achieved through conducting studies, research, and providing consultations. The institute is concerned with analyzing desalinated water, ensuring its safety, and evaluating related products.

The institute was inaugurated during the reign of King Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, specifically in 1987, and was known as the Research and Development Center. Then, a decision was issued to change its name as part of a series of decisions that included restructuring the institute and approving the provision of its services to private sector entities for a fee. In 2023, its name was changed to the Institute for Innovation in Water Technologies and Advanced Research. It is considered the research arm of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation, and its main headquarters is located in the governorate of Jubail in the Eastern Province. It has several departments that organize its work.

The Institute for Innovation in Water Technologies and Advanced Research undertakes numerous tasks and responsibilities, mainly: working on the development of the desalination industry of saline water in the Kingdom, finding solutions to the problems of desalinating water, conducting research and studies related to the institute's field of expertise, providing consultancy services and evaluation services, in addition to verifying the quality of the water produced by the desalination stations of saline water in the Kingdom, in several aspects, such as chemical, microbial, and physical aspects.

The institute offers commercial services for water desalination and treatment stations, including:

- Consultative studies, whether they are engineering, scientific, or environmental, in numerous fields: such as the field of saline deposits in parts of the desalination stations, corrosion of metal alloys, and the bio-pollution problems resulting from the growth of bacteria and algae in the water, among others.

-Evaluation projects, which include: evaluating the quality of materials used in water desalination and purification, such as anti-scaling agents, anti-foaming agents, corrosion inhibitors, oxygen scavengers, and others.

- Analysis and testing: by using specialized equipment and laboratories for analyzing water, measuring its quality, and verifying its compliance with adopted standards. The equipment and laboratories are operated by a specialized professional staff.

Since its establishment, the Institute for Innovation in Water Technologies and Advanced Research, formerly known as the Desalination Research and Technologies Institute, has secured various patents. These include desalinating seawater using dual-method nanotechnologies in filtration membranes, integrating traditional with modern water desalination techniques involving nanofiltration membranes, energy-efficient methods for reverse osmosis desalination, and primary water treatment, a method for carbon dioxide isolation, a control system for freshwater evaporation devices, purifying water using monatomic ion through high-precision filtration, and a technique targeting the separation of salts and minerals in brine to optimize the utilization of byproducts in reverse osmosis systems.

The Institute won numerous awards, including an award from the International Desalination Association, which was granted to the institute in 1999 for discovering a method for treating seawater with ultra-precise nanomembranes. Additionally, the institute received an award for the best invention leading to advancements in the saline water desalination industry, awarded in Spain in 2007.