A Clever New Approach To Desalination

Posted by kdawson on Saturday October 31, 2009 @07:46AM 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."

2 of 128 comments (clear)

Re:Maybe by clang_jangle · 2009-10-31 08:05 · Score: 0, Troll

I don't get it.
The ions are not a substitute for electrons, they're the source. There is no electricity without electrons. :)

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Caveat Utilitor
Re:Maybe by Rei · 2009-10-31 09:14 · Score: 1, Troll

Yeah, you "just" put a roof over it. As though that wouldn't 10x the construction and maintenance costs of the evaporation ponds. :P

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Look at me, still talking while there's science to do.