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

Jonas Arildsson

Senior Mechanical Engineer

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

Niels Boon

Niels Boon

CSO

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.

Paula Merino

Junior Engineer

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

Board of Directors

Mohamad Takwa

Chairman & Co-founder

Dr. Mohamad Takwa has a PhD in biotechnology from the KTH University of Stockholm and has been involved in the establishment and early-stage of multiple successful innovation-based companies. Mohamad has contributed to more than 10 publications & 3 patents and has worked at multiple renowned European research institutions. Mohamad combines his passion for science and innovation to help cutting edge bio- & cleantech technologies from bench to market. He has co-founded several successful biotech and cleantech start-ups like: Bioextrax AB, Thyrolytics AB, Spermosens AB and Avsalt AB.

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.

Johan Säfholm

Board Member

Johan is a senior development engineer with long experience from product development and industrialisation at Sony Ericsson, Flatfrog Laboratories and Axis Communications.