Biography: Julián Blanco Dipl. Industrial Engineer by Seville University (1984). Master in Environmental Sciences by the Instituto de Investigaciones Ecológicas (Málaga, 1994). PhD by the University of Almería (2002). At present he has a permanent position as Senior Researcher of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. Since 1995 is both the head of the CIEMAT Solar Chemistry department of PSA and the Spanish National Representative in the Task II group of International Energy Agency – SolarPACES (Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems). He has been involved in 11 European Union (3rd, 4th and 5th Framework Programmes, three of them as Coordinator), 11 National R&D Projects and 6 R&D Contracts (with Private Companies) related with the development of Solar Technologies applied to waste water processes and techniques. He is author of 1 book, co-author of 3 books and 8 chapters in different books, more than 50 publications in indexed international journals and more than 100 contributions to about 70 different International Congress and Symposiums. Also, he has given multiple lectures in courses, conferences and seminars.

Diego Alarcón has been working at the Plataforma Solar de Almería since 1994, starting his research career in the field of computer modeling of high-concentrating solar thermal technologies for electricity production. In 2002, he joined the research group “Environmental Applications of Solar Energy” and began to focus his investigations in the field of seawater desalination with solar thermal energy. Currently he works on his doctoral dissertation about the incorporation of absorption heat pumps to the multi-effect distillation processs. Further he contributes to the R&D European project “AQUASOL”, whose experimental phase will be carried out at the Plataforma Solar de Almería.