We've published a new article in Desalination that demonstrates how dynamic control strategies can significantly reduce the thermal energy demand of membrane distillation systems, improving the viability of low‑grade heat sources for water purification. Read our work here.

Saber Khanmohammadi has successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled "On using heat for desalination and water purification" and is taking a postdoc position at the University of California, Merced. Congratulations Dr. Khanmohammadi!

Saber Khanmohammadi is in Memphis, TN to present our work about thermally-driven desalination at the 2025 ASME International Mechanical Engineering Congress & Exposition. His talk will highlight thermodynamic insights into using heat to power reverse osmosis. 

Pauline Sarr (M.Sc.A. Bioresource Engineering) has won the Best Student Poster Award at this year's Brace Water Day. Congratulations Pauline!

Prof. Maisonneuve has been awarded $190,000 in funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to establish the Nature-Energy-Water (NEW) lab at McGill University, which will focus on sustainable water purification and desalination for remote communities.

Prof. Maisonneuve is returning to his alma mater, as an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioresource Engineering. More news to come!

Sandeep Aryal successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled "Energy-efficient dehumidification of controlled plant environments via the application of fertilizer-based liquid desiccants", and is now taking a faculty position at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Congratulations Prof. Aryal!

We've published an experimental study in Energy Nexus that demonstrates how fertilizer solutions can serve as effective liquid desiccants, reducing energy use in controlled‑environment agriculture while maintaining suitable humidity conditions for plant growth. Read more here.

Ryan Younes and Foster Caragay (both B.S.E. Electrical Engineering majors) are in Toronto, ON to attend the 2025 ASABE Annual International Meeting, and to present their work about microalgae photobioreactors and membrane-based carbonation.

We published a new article in Desalination providing the fundamental thermodynamic framework for a novel reverse‑osmosis process that is powered directly by heat rather than electricity. Read the journal paper here.

11.2025. update: This work has been featured in an article by the McGill Newsroom.

Our student team took home 2nd prize at this year's Marine Energy Collegiate Competition! We were also awarded 1st prize for the best business plan! This was our third time competing in the event which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Read all about our work in the OU Magazine.

07.2025 update: Read more

Prof. Maisonneuve was interviewed by Journal La Presse about the future possibilities for harnessing renewable energy from gradients of salt. A link to the article is here (in french).

Harnessing power from salt gradients requires very careful management of operating conditions in order to ensure that auxiliary loads (like pumping) do not exceed power output. In this work, Sanjana and Saber demonstrate a control strategy that successfully optimizes net power output in real-time. Read our work now published in Applied Energy.

Oakland University is launching a new M.S. Energy Engineering program with specializations in renewables, batteries, and electrification. The program is open to students from a wide range of backgrounds. You can apply here.

Our team travelled to Portland, OR to compete in this year's Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, which is sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Lab. We won 3rd prize for our system which uses ocean thermal gradients to drive seawater desalination via membrane distillation. Congratulations to Matt, Gerard, Lance, Mike, and Saber!

06.2024. update: See the feature in the OU News.

Graduate students from Prof. Maisonneuve's lab travelled to Santa Fe, NM to participate in this year's North American Membrane Society Annual Meeting. Sandeep won an Elias Klein Student Travel Award, and both Sandeep and Saber presented posters of their work.

Prof. Maisonneuve visited Changchun University of Technology (CCUT) and spent several weeks lecturing on thermodynamics. Thank you to CCUT for hosting and best of luck to all the students!

A team of OU students is participating in this year's Department of Energy "Marine Energy Collegiate Competition". As part of the competition, they've partnered with Melvindale High School and the DAPCEP program to teach K-12 students about marine energy.

We were very pleased to continue our "Sustainability Seminar Series" this semester with two invited speakers from Sandia National Laboratory:  Dr. Carlos A. Michelén Ströfer and Dr. Jorge A. Leon-Quiroga. The talks focused on marine energy conversion and were hosted by students from the "Marine Energy Collegiate Competition" team and from the "Engineers for a Sustainable World" student club. Links to the talks are available here.

We have launched a new "Sustainability Seminar Series". Our inaugural speakers were Prof. Mark Lefsrud (McGill University) and Prof. Glenn Lipscomb (University of Toledo). Links to the talks are available here and here. The initiative is supported by funding from the ASEE "Engineering for One Planet" program. Looking forward to many more great speakers in the near future!

In our most recent work, Sarah and Sandeep evaluated the energy efficiency of using fertilizer as a liquid desiccant to dehumidify greenhouses. We report very competitive specific energy results as low as 0.3 Wh per g of water vapor removed. Read our paper now published in Applied Thermal Engineering.

Graduate students from Prof. Maisonneuve's lab travelled to Tuscaloosa, AL to participate in the North American Membrane Society's Annual Meeting. Sarah and Sanjana gave speaker presentations highlighting their recent publications (link and link), and Sandeep and Saber presented posters.

Our team travelled to Washington, DC to compete in this year's Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, sponsored by the US Department of Energy. We designed and built a system that recovers energy from salt to improve the efficiency of seawater desalination. Our prototype was featured by Alicat Scientific (who supplied controls for the system).

Sarah Moussaddy and Sancheyan Pushparajah introduce the novel concept of using fertilizer to dehumidify indoor plant environments. Read our paper in Applied Thermal Engineering.

A team of OU students from Engineering, Biology, and Business will compete in this year's Marine Energy Collegiate Competition, sponsored by the Department of Energy. A $20,000 prize will support prototyping of an osmotic power system that produces clean energy from seawater. Good luck!

PhD candidate Sarah Moussaddy presented a poster of her work on fertilizer dehumidification at this year's North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting in Tempe, AZ.

PhD students Sanjana Chintalacheruvu, Sarah Moussaddy, and Jimmy Postwala attended the 2022 Michigan Energy Efficiency Conference with Profs. Kobus and Maisonneuve. Thank you to DTE Energy and the Engineering Society of Detroit for hosting a great event!

Pouyan Pourmovahed successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled "Harvesting energy and water from fertilizer osmosis". Congratulations Dr. Pourmovahed!

Pouyan Pourmovahed's paper on the limits of using fertilizer to drive water recovery by osmosis is now available in the Journal of Membrane Science.

PhD candidate Sarah Moussaddy presented her work on harvesting energy from gas at the North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting in Estes Park, CO. The audience included distinguished scientists Dr. Richard Baker and Dr. Hans Wijmans.

PhD candidate Sanjana Chintalacheruvu presented a poster of her work on using heat to thermally enhance osmosis at this year's North American Membrane Society (NAMS) Annual Meeting in Estes Park, CO.

PhD candidate Sanjana Chintalacheruvu has won the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) 2021-2022 Intel Scholarship valued at $10,000. Congratulations Sanjana!

Pouyan Pourmovahed's paper on the thermodynamic limits of recovering energy from fertilizer is available in the Journal of Membrane Science.

Prof. Maisonneuve's lab is featured in this month's issue of "Oakland Engineer".

PhD candidate Sarah Moussaddy has won the 2020 SECS Best Graduate Paper Award for her recent publication in the Journal of Membrane Science. Congratulations Sarah!