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Evaporation Prevention Using Molecular Blankets
Makarand writes "According to this article in the
New Scientist, a Canadian company is testing a
technology to reduce water evaporation from reservoirs by
spreading an ultra-thin blanket of organic molecules on the surface to block the escape
of water molecules into the air.
Trials conducted in India and Morocco showed between 30 and 45 per cent reduction in evaporation
using this method. However,
the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear
as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases
such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide."
won't this increase the algae population ?
the problem with water is distribution not evaporation
Scientists working to stop evaporation accidentally unleash it on the world's ocean. This causes weather around the world to go crazy, and only a group of scientists doing something bizarre can fix it.
That's not a environment destroying oil spill, its a high tech water evaporation prevention film.
same result, you get a nice film on the surface and damages the local ecology plus you can get it from your local gas station
how about spending money on better infrastructure or de-salination plants first ? then you wouldnt need to stop evaporation, remember 80% of the globe is covered with H2O so evaporation is not the problem
However, the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide."
Don't forget possible changes to the weather. For instance, there are a number of areas whose climate and micro-climate are influenced by nearby bodies of water.
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Just wait until they make a version that replicates.. so you can pour 1 cup in a lake and in a few days it covers the lake....
Then wait until someone pours a cup of this into the oceans.
Then wait when it stops raining and we all die.
YAY
What's the difference between this "new" system for evaporation prevention and the Liquid Solar Blankets sold in Pool Supply stores? This tech has been used for years!! Course this company has probably jacked up the pricing since this is supposedly "new" once again...
I would think that if water cant get out kinetically then air and nitrogen cant get in. so you can kiss all fish and algea goodbye.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I'm sure they could use this in the Ural Sea (or whats left of it). Could animals drink through it? If they could I can imagine this being very useful for the thirsty animals during dry seasons in Africa's national parks.
However, the long term ecological effects of reducing evaporation in lakes or reservoirs is not yet clear as evaporation prevention can increase water temperatures and affect the exchange rates of gases such as oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
This seems like a pretty critical area of the research. If the water becomes stagnant and full of algae or dead fish, what good is it?
This could have unforeseen effects on the local ecosystem.
Unforseen? Maybe if you have your eyes and ears taped shut? Forgive me for being cynical, but it seems so many scientists are out for a little fame and don't see the big pictures.
Call me silly... but, isn't water evaporation part of the cycle of weather? Take out one part and the machine doesn't work. I hope that this "technology" is not used on a large scale. The implications concerning local weather patterns could be devastating.
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Last time I checked, something called "rain" is made possible by evaporation from lakes, resiorvoirs, etc. Wouldn't preventing evaporation prevent rain? Rain happens to be a great way to irrigate fields, and is very good for our environment...
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This would be great for those of us in the intermountain west.
Our reservoirs lose tons of water over the long hot dry days of summer. Add that to the 5 year drought we're in....and it'd help enormously. Of course, that would probably mean boats and jetskis would be off limits during that time, but having water is more important that having fun.
...by spreading an ultra-thin blanket of organic molecules on the surface to block the escape of water molecules...
Are they trying to place a positive ecological spin on oil spils/slicks? Oil is organic, and it does prevent the evaporation of the underlying water.
I recall seeing/reading elsewhere that a few millileters is enough to create a minute slick over several square kilometers.
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We studied this in school. They use large alcohols as the skin (as covered in this article). The point is that it's usually distribution rather than storage that is the problem. (In Melbourne.au the annual evaporation rate is 3m - on a shallow 30m deep dam this means that it would take 10 years to evaporate the water away, assuming none is added. I have some old papers here from the 60s by the then Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works about this idea.
:) but more importantly, the water is actually cleaned by the action of anerobic bacteria on the water.
If you are having problems keeping water due to evaporation then you need to choose a better dam site.
More interesting is a proposal to store stormwater underground. Firstly, the land area and evaporation issues disappear (to be replaced by similar issues
How is this different than having suntan lotion come off in the pool?
Isn't there alot of data on that?
Geez! What are these researchers thinking about.
Then next thing you know, Exxon will be dumping oil from their tankers to mitigate "global evaporation".
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This might also be useful for refineries/chemical plants, etc. that maintain large atmospheric pressure reservoirs of dihydrogen monoxide for fire-fighting purposes.
Ah, just what I need for my new swimming pool...on Arrakis!
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Actually creating monolayers of organic molecules reduces the surface tension of water.
Water with its strong tendency to hydrogen bond has a greater surface tension than that of an eight carbon simple alcohol. These alcohols form monolayers by hydrogen bonding with the water molecules. The hydrophobicity of their carbon chained tails creates an excess surface concentration, which at a great enough concentration forms a monolayer.
crowbar??
My first thought was the same as yours -- oil on water and asphyxiating fish. But that might not be the case.
They claim that their technique produces a monolayer on the surface. That's a layer one molecule thick. This would easily be disturbed by the slightest motion or breeze. The tiniest ripple would create local openings. In fact, this is probably why their reduction in water loss is so small -- only tens of percent. Lots of water gets out. This implies that lots of gases could also get in. (i.e., gas exchange with the atmosphere would perhaps be inhibited by tens of percent amount.)
Okay, this sounds to me like vapor ware.
Ok, sorry, had to...but really, doesn't this sound like the setup for a sci-fi world saving movie where the original cause of the disaster was something incredibly stupid a scientist (the one equipping the rescuers) did?
"You bred the aliens on Earth?"
"Doctor! You designed the Neutronomiconimeter Canon!?!"
"My god! Humans spread the oil on the ocean, causing the sea monsters to attack from Atlantis!?!"
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It's kind of annoying that these days, when any new technology arrives, it is subject to a ridiculously paranoid environmentalism filter. Resevoir water is about .0001% of all water on the planet and people are worried about gas exchange and the temperature of it! Enough to deprive populations in the developing world of clean drinking water? I was suprised that the cost of the system wasn't mentioned in the header, only the environmental impact.
by spreading an ultra-thin blanket of organic molecules on the surface
Isn't this an Oil Slick, some complanies have been doing it for years.
Oops ultra-thin obviously, given oil prices and shortages, they cant afford the old style heavy slicks any more.
In the book the film is caused by pollution, but it is almost impossible to disperse and remains resistant to the waves and man-made attempts to break up the film. In the end, humanity ends up clinging to life by the edges of the ocean, each person with their own solar-powered desalination plant.
A sobering thought if you've read the book. Imaging what whould happen if this stuff got loose?
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People wanting more info should STF(ree)W for Irving Langmuir or Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers, e.g.,
http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/chemistry/ institutes/1992/Langmuir.html
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An interesting thing i saw on today tonight a while ago whilst in the middle of the last Aussie drought (which we're still pretty much in) was a guy who was using this left over laundry water and sink water and other waters to water his grass and gardins!
And what about the laundry detergents that get soaked into the soil and water reserves? It might not have an effect if one guy does it but what if everyone did it? I've lived in a place that had a natural water reservoir nearby and it doesn't take a lot to contaminate - the whole town spent several days without drinkable water when someone decided to dump some slaughter waste in the wrong place.
Didn't we already try this with the Exxon-Valdez?
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I work in the water treatment business, and I've visited water treatment plants all over North America. The thing that is common to all water supplies is that the customers think they have some sort of a "right" to unlimited clean water without sacrifice. They grumble and complain and write woefully misinformed letters to their newspapers when the local water company attempts to raise rates to cover infrastructure improvements or cost-of-living salary increases.
What people don't see is that treating water to make it drinkable costs money. If you could see the way water infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada is degrading and how the water industry (especially production and distribution companies) are being forced to ignore staffing and capital improvement needs just because their customers vote for the government to force low rates, you'd understand.
If water prices were allowed to fluctuate more realistically, people wouldn't waste so much of it. Really, in the U.S. and Canada, people pay over US$1.00 for a silly little bottle of water that isn't even guaranteed to have as good quality as tapwater, and then they balk at rate increases of a few pennies per thousand gallons!
If water prices more accurately reflected the true costs of production and distribution, people would think twice about watering their desert lawns. They'd go out and buy water saving appliances on their own, since it would directly translate into savings on their next water bill.
The only thing compulsory water conservation accomplishes is building a bloated bureaucracy of bill checkers, house inspectors and intrusions into the private lives of citizens. Realistic water rates encourage conservation, reduce the load on local governments who have to redirect resources from fire departments, roads, etc., to enforcement of water use regulations, and above all, give consumers more respect for the vital natural resource they've been pouring down the drain ever since Roman times.
Well theres very good water filters these days. Im sure if you ran the water from baths, showers, washing, sink etc (i think we can do with the tolite) you'd just pump it into a filter.
there's people round Oz now that are putting in full water treatment plants under their gardens. Somethings gota be done. Maybe the goverment can do something similar to the PBS (pharasutical benefits scheeme) where they can bring the costs down of water saving devices.
that way everyone can benifit from lower water consumption, not just the rich!
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