The Classification of Desalination Technologies (CDT-26) is the institute's framework for ordering the technology landscape: the basis of our assessments, benchmarks and the DESALFACTS technology database.
Two axes, one classification: what a technology is - and how mature it is.
CDT-26 is intellectual property of the PIM Group, applied by DME and DESALFACTS.
What CDT-26 does not answer: how mature a technology is. That is what DesTeDeBe, our 10-point development benchmark, is for.
From ancient sailors to a modern scheme
Desalination has a history spanning thousands of years. Nature's water cycle was the first teacher: by mimicking evaporation and condensation, early civilisations separated water from salt. Over the last century, technology turned that principle into plants at industrial scale.
To make the field comparable, we classify it. The scheme has grown with the field - today it is CDT-26, the current classification of desalination technologies. It stays deliberately general where it must, and precise where it counts.
Working principles, one framework
Behind every technology sits a working principle - the physical force that drives the separation. The framework is built to be comprehensive yet general, spanning disciplines, and focused on the primary driving forces rather than every minor effect. That is what makes different technologies comparable at all.