About Us

Avsalt was founded as a Swedish company with the aim to build a commercial system for water desalination. Today the Avsalt headquarter is based in Malmö, Sweden and the R&D is running at Delft, the Netherlands. The development of Avsalt’s desalination device is carried out at TU Delft in close association with the Department of Process and Energy.

THE CONCEPTION

Avsalt was conceived in 2012 by Niels Boon after his doctoral research at Utrecht University. While studying the means to harvest energy from mixing of river and sea water in estuaries, he realized that the reverse process of converting electrical energy into salinity gradients will be important for desalination. In 2017, Niels relocated the work from Amsterdam to Lund where Niels developed the first prototype capable of desalting water using porous carbon electrodes.

AVSALT TODAY

2018 Avsalt AB was born in Lund where work begun on building a commercial system for water desalination. Today Avsalt AB has its active R&D running in Delft. Niels Boon is perfecting the desalination device at TU Delft in close association with the Department of Process and Energy.

Technical Team

Paula Merino

Test and evaluation engineer

Paula has a degree in Energy Engineering from the Carlos III University of Madrid and is passionate about sustainability.

Jonas Arildsson

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Jonas has long experience from engineering, construction and project lead.

Thomas Andén

Materials and electrode manufacturing engineer

Thomas is a dedicated chemist who has long experience from making slurries and paint.

Robin Persson

Software Developer

Robin works as a software developer at Avsalt, taking care of all the zeroes and ones.

Management

Johan Säfholm

CEO

Johan has a M.Sc in applied physics and has long experience from product development and industrialisation from companies such as Sony Ericsson, Flatfrog Laboratories and Axis Communications.

Advisors

Niels Boon

Niels Boon

Scientific Advisor

Niels received his PhD in 2012 from Utrecht University, with his thesis on electrostatics in ionic solution, followed by a postdoctoral position at Northwestern University, Chicago USA. In 2016, Niels was appointed Research fellow at Lund University, Sweden, where he studied the dynamics of polymers in solution with varying salinity. Niels has received several awards including Molecular Physics’ Longuet-Higgins Young author’s Prize for his publication “Blue energy: From ion adsorption and electrode charging in sea and river water”, and the Future Innovation Honorary Award from Lund University for a desalination device without pumps or valves.

Board of Directors

Thomas Bengtsson

Chairman

Thomas is a cleantech entrepreneur and investor with broad experience of governing growth companies, following positions at both investment-fund level, for Industrifonden, and company level as CoB at Nasdaq First North listed companies.

Niels Boon

Niels Boon

Inventor & Founder

Niels received his PhD in 2012 from Utrecht University, with his thesis on electrostatics in ionic solution, followed by a postdoctoral position at Northwestern University, Chicago USA. In 2016, Niels was appointed Research fellow at Lund University, Sweden, where he studied the dynamics of polymers in solution with varying salinity. Niels has received several awards including Molecular Physics’ Longuet-Higgins Young author’s Prize for his publication “Blue energy: From ion adsorption and electrode charging in sea and river water”, and the Future Innovation Honorary Award from Lund University for a desalination device without pumps or valves.

Kristofer Cook

Board Member

Kristofer has started several award-winning companies over the past 20 years. He has run companies in the biotechnology, cleantech and foodtech areas and is the current CEO of publicly listed Carbiotix AB.