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A Clever New Approach To Desalination

Posted by kdawson on from the pass-the-salt dept.

jbeaupre writes "The Economist reports on progress by a company called Saltworks on using saline gradients to do the heavy lifting of desalination. In essence, Saltworks uses solar energy or waste heat to concentrate sea water. They then use the ionic gradient between the concentrated brine and two sea-water streams to pull ions from from a 3rd sea-water stream. It appears to work with entropy by trading the reduced entropy of the desalinated water against the increased entropy of 'mixing' the brine and the other sea-water streams. The article only discusses Na and Cl, but even just removing these ions is a step in the right direction."

4 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Making Dew by lyinhart · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Thinking about desalination makes me remember that episode of "The Voyage the Mimi" in which they used the process to make drinking water:

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-524069894840499801# (A/V's not synced)

    --
    Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
  2. Vancouver saves the world? by Yergle143 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK between this and the General Fusion guys http://www.generalfusion.com/ Canada has got water and energy completely licked. http://www.saltworkstech.com/ OK actually I'm still trying to run the numbers on the both of them (and waiting for some peer reviewed publications.)

  3. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  4. Re:Anyone else think... by tehdaemon · · Score: 2, Interesting
    An appropriate link: The Last Question

    T

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    Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.