Solar Desalination Breakthrough
MEMBERS & VISITORS:
Solar Desalination Breakthrough
Hey there! I just learned something super amazing about turning seawater into drinking water. You know, most of our planet’s water is in the oceans, but it’s too salty to drink. People have been trying to take the salt out of seawater (which is called desalination) for a long time, but it’s not that easy. However, some smart folks at MIT and a university in Shanghai might have just inventd a great way to do it!
I also read about this place called Kiribati. It’s a bunch of islands in the Pacific Ocean, and for them, this new way of making fresh water could be a total game-changer. Even in places like the US and UK, this could be super helpful during hot, dry summers.
Desalination isn’t new. Even the ancient Greeks did it by boiling seawater and then collecting the fresh water that turned into. Nowadays, one way people do it is by heating seawater to make steam and then using the steam to make fresh water in another place. Another way is using a special filter (membrane) to separate salt from water. This method is called reverse osmosis, where you push the seawater through a filter that catches the salt and lets only water through.
Now, let’s talk about Kiribati. It’s really pretty, with coral reefs and lagoons, and over 100,000 people live there. It’s unique because it’s in all four hemispheres of the Earth! But, they have a big problem: rising sea levels are making it hard to find fresh water. They used to get water from the rain that seeped into the ground, but now with the sea rising and big waves, it’s getting tougher.
In Kiribati, when it doesn’t rain, people can’t get fresh water. And this isn’t just their problem; many places in the world face water shortages.
So, back to the amazing thing MIT and Shanghai researchers are doing. They looked at how the ocean moves and used those ideas to make a new desalination system. They built this system that uses the sun’s heat directly (which is super cheap and efficient) and doesn’t get blocked by the salt like other methods.
This new system is like a big box under the water. It uses the sun to heat the seawater, which then turns into vapor, goes through a special material that doesn’t let liquid through (only vapor), and then turns back into fresh water. The amazing part is that it keeps the salt moving so it doesn’t block the system. This means it works really well, doesn’t need much fixing, and could be cheaper than the water we get from our taps!
The researchers think this could be great for small places like Kiribati, giving them a lot of fresh water without harming the environment. How awesome is that? This invention has the potential to make the inventors, as well as the sponsoring education institutions, quite wealthy! Yes, inventions can make the inventors unimaginably wealthy is the come up with a revolutionary idea which solves major problems facing humanity.
One of the yet unsolved problems is how to transport large amounts of fresh water to inland locations where water is needed for consumption and irrigation. This would require whole new levels of power which hopefully uses renewable energy and the necessary infrastructure like pumps, canals, and pipes.
We have published other informative posts on Invention School’s website which may interest you. To view our entire catalog of over 900 posts go to inventionschool.tech/category/blog/ or use our handy search tool to find topics of interest to you.
Mechanical/Solar Engineer, Prof. Oku Singer
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