UAE start-up promotes sustainable water and floating farm solutions at Cop28

Manhat aims to build floating farms using proprietary technology to generate fresh water from the ocean without electricity

Manhat founder Saeed Alhassan is on a mission to improve water and food security.

UAE start-up Manhat is making the most of Cop28 to promote its vision of food and water security with products that generate fresh water without electricity.

“This is an opportunity to meet and network with potential investors, technology providers or NGOs to bring our product to the market,” said Emirati founder Saeed Alhassan, who is also a chemical and petroleum engineering professor at Khalifa University.

The technology Mr Alhassan refers to is an ambitious one.

The device launched by Mr Alhassan last year uses proprietary technology to generate fresh water from the ocean without using electricity, addressing a major hurdle as the Arabian Gulf seeks ways to ensure water and food security, which has historically been problematic given the climate in the region.

"Water basically evaporates from the bottom side," he said, pointing to one of the company's devices.

"And then it goes up and it fills this sphere, and when the night comes and the temperature drops, then the water condenses inside and gets collected in this reservoir here."

"There're a lot of problems with the current desalination method," Mr Alhassan said, referring to the energy-intensive desalination process.

"The brine [in the current process] also collects a lot of contaminants from the water processing because it's in contact with a lot of metal equipment ... and it eventually goes back to the ocean and has an effect on aquatic life," he added, noting that the common reverse osmosis method also has the potential to create pollution.

Manhat is in the process of finding a better price point for its proprietary devices to bring them to the masses, Mr Alhassan said.

"We want to be among the first to break this," he said, referring to the current economic landscape of building, manufacturing and delivering the devices.

Manhat founder Saeed Alhassan. Photo: Manhat

"We want to bring this technology to market as soon as we can."

In a lot of the advertising and marketing materials for Manhat, a floating farm is part of the company's vision.

The floating farm was part of one of the company's initial patents filed several years ago, according to Mr Alhassan. It offers a tantalising vision for how Manhat's devices can eventually be used to grow food, even if sea levels continue to rise as a result of global climate change, he said.

"A floating farm will always produce water because you have access to the ocean and you can grow crops in an efficient way," he said.

When the video of Manhat's devices first appeared on social media last year, it generated a buzz on several social platforms, something that Mr Alhassan said is not surprising from a Middle East and North Africa perspective, given the region's historical struggle with water scarcity.

"The water challenge is inherently woven into our imagination," he said.

"I can still remember when family members would go and take water back from the wells in the 1970s and even in the 1980s ... so people appreciate water probably more in this region than they do anywhere else in the world."

Manhat founder Saeed Alhassan, right, with associate Vishnu Pillai. Photo: Manhat

Mr Alhassan is optimistic that the levels of curiosity and enthusiasm will help propel Manhat forward, especially as Cop28 reaches a crescendo and the desire for climate solutions ripple forward in the months and years ahead.

He also said that Manhat, which is currently in the design phase for new prototypes to complement the existing water solutions, has resolved previous manufacturing challenges that could pave the way to market for new products.

Manhat is currently in the design phase for new prototypes to complement the existing water solutions, according to Mr Alhassan.

"We're more hopeful than ever," Mr Alhassan said. "We've solved manufacturing and we've solved scalability ... and here at Cop, it's a great meeting point where you have the businesspeople, the technical people and the policymakers."