An amazing device that desalinates sea water using solar energy
There is no doubt that finding cheap and practical ways to desalinate sea water will help the 844 million people around the world who do not now have regular access to safe drinking water.
Scientists have just found a new technology to do this that is entirely solar from an energy perspective, but is able to remove about 100% of the salt in the original liquid.
This technology uses a small disk containing layers of carbon nanotubes to absorb light. It works on the traditional method of desalination; You heat the water until it evaporates and then return it, separating the water from the salt and other impurities.
To convert water into steam, this technology needs solar energy, by using some materials to convert this energy into thermal energy with high efficiency, but if these disks are covered with salt crystals, sunlight will be blocked from them and they will stop working.
The new technology successfully addresses this problem by maintaining a constant rate of water evaporation; by harvesting the salts and removing them from the disc; To prevent it from reducing efficiency; So we can say we've found a cheap and effective way to desalinate water.
Devices using this technology can be especially useful in places where electricity is not available because they rely on solar energy.
"The results of our study take another step towards the practical use of solar energy technology for water evaporation, demonstrating great potential in desalinating seawater without water loss," says chemical engineer Xiwang Zhang from Monash University in Australia.
"We hope that this research will serve as a starting point for further research in the field of ways to provide clean and safe water to millions of people, especially those who do not have the necessary energy, and shed light on the environmental impact of bilge water and the recovery of resources from it," Xuang Zhang added.
The new system uses a 1mm cotton thread to transfer the salt water to the evaporation disk, where the pure water is trapped and the salts are pushed aside, of course using the energy of the sun's rays. This disc absorbs more than 94% of the frequencies of the entire solar spectrum so it works regardless of the characteristics of the available solar light.
Zhang told New Atlas that the innovative new device is currently capable of producing 6-8 liters of desalinated water per square meter of surface area each day. Next, scientists want to raise production.
It's not the only desalination technology that has caught researchers' attention lately; Last year, a team from the United States produced a hydrogel-based, solar-powered seawater desalination technology that's efficient enough to desalinate Dead Sea water.
The challenge is to scale these technologies up and make them practical both by making them operational and by how much water can be treated.
“Water security represents humanity’s greatest challenge in the 21st century, especially with population growth and the impact of climate change,” says Chang. “Developing societies with less resources are more vulnerable to these factors.”
“Using solar energy to desalinate seawater on a large scale is one of the sustainable solutions towards addressing the scarcity of clean water in some communities, without sacrificing our environment or our resources,” he says.
This research has been published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.
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