MIT’s New Desalination System Produces Freshwater That Is “Cheaper Than Tap Water”
MIT’s New Desalination System Produces Freshwater That Is “Cheaper Than Tap Water”
MIT engineers and collaborators developed a solar-powered device that avoids the salt-clogging issues of other designs. Engineers at MIT and in China are aiming to turn seawater into drinking water with a completely passive device that is inspired by the ocean, and powered by the sun. In a pap
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"When seawater is exposed to air, sunlight drives water to evaporate. Once water leaves the surface, salt remains. And the higher the salt concentration, the denser the liquid, and this heavier water wants to flow downward,” Zhang explains.
Not to be a downer but it sounds like it's going to kill all wild and plant life in the area its used. The leftover salt is left in the same area, not only making it harder for desalination in the future and making it too salty for anything to live in the area. Brine pools are death traps and these just seen like brine pool makers.
If the brine was used for salt production. That would offset the effects to the local environment. As salt and water are being removed.
I don't think you realize just how much salt that's going to be. Plus the brine they get afterwards isn't just pure salt. It has contaminates including sea life. So there's a lot more process to making usable salt.
Also, these seem generally cheap to produce so the chances of smaller cities and vilages to obtain one is pretty high. So even if salt was able to easily able to be gathered from this process, there's going to be a lot of excess salt lying around.
Desalination seems great on the surface, but until we have a solution for brine it's going to be another technology that will only hurt us in the long run.
Just dump it back in the ocean and the waves will carry it all away, problem solved!
Carry it away outside the environment. I didn't think if that
"It's been towed beyond the environment, it's not in the environment."
Works with my garbage and/or toxic waste, you're welcome planet!
This is a huge problem with all desalination of sea water, and why desalination cannot be a sustainable primary water source, even with free energy.
We need to close our water systems such that waste water is not cleaned just enough to be dumped into rivers and oceans. We need to recycle the fresh water we have. Urban wastewater takes much less energy to purify than sea water and produces more pure water with less untreatable waste.
That or we find a way to use brine. Maybe it's good amazing concrete or something. Or between an upper and lower reservoir for excess renewable energy so we don't use good water. There has to be some use for it