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Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water (news.mit.edu)

submitted 1 year ago by Gsus4@feddit.nl to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Engineers at MIT and in China are aiming to turn seawater into drinking water with a completely passive device that is inspired by the ocean, and powered by the sun.

In a paper appearing today in the journal Joule, the team outlines the design for a new solar desalination system that takes in saltwater and heats it with natural sunlight.

The researchers estimate that if the system is scaled up to the size of a small suitcase, it could produce about 4 to 6 liters of drinking water per hour and last several years before requiring replacement parts. At this scale and performance, the system could produce drinking water at a rate and price that is cheaper than tap water.

https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00360-4

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[–] BeautifulMind@lemmy.world 44 points 1 year ago (6 children)

This sounds fantastic on its face, but I seem to keep on hearing about how desalination will solve all kinds of problems and we still have this particular problem.

The missing piece, it seems, is the will for it to be used as infra at scale. Meanwhile selling bottled water taken for free from public lands for several dollars a liter in single-use bottles remains a multi-billion dollar industry. (an industry, I might add, that is aggressive about lobbying to protect its interests)

[–] Astroturfed@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Not to mention if we do this at enough scale it will raise the salinity of the ocean and, you know, kill everything.

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

The oceans have been collecting salt from runoff for billions of years, humans reintroducing some of that salt before the water will not affect ocean salinity.

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