Samarth Rastogi

NCUR 2026

Presented ThermOcean's thermocline-driven desalination research — "Utilizing Ocean Thermoclines for Water Desalination" — at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Richmond, VA.

Role Co-author & presenter
Year Richmond, VA · April 2026
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The presentation

The National Conference on Undergraduate Research brings together undergraduate work from across the country. In April 2026, in Richmond, VA, I co-authored and presented the ThermOcean team’s research poster: Utilizing Ocean Thermoclines for Water Desalination — the concept, system design, and test results behind the ThermOcean case study.

Research poster titled Utilizing Ocean Thermoclines for Water Desalination, presented at NCUR 2026: sections on the thermocline-driven membrane distillation concept, system design, test results, and scaling economics.
The poster as presented. Click to enlarge, or read the full-resolution PDF below.

Read the full-resolution poster (PDF) →

The work itself — the finned-channel membrane distillation module, the test campaign, and where the numbers came from — lives in the full case study.

Connected to
Organizations
Purdue University · Warsinger Water Lab
Research areas
Marine Energy · Desalination · Thermal Systems
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Further reading

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Exploded CAD render of the conductive-gap membrane distillation module: acrylic housings, gaskets, and the finned heat-transfer plate.EngineeringThermOceanA desalination platform driven primarily by the ocean's temperature gradient, with a solar-thermal boost in the full-scale design. Treating water cost as an energy problem cut it 51%.Team Lead20 researchers2025–26