this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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MIT engineers and collaborators developed a solar-powered device that avoids salt-clogging issues of other designs.

More details in their paper here

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[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

but why "if"?

if they're making this research, why wouldn't they "scale up to the size of a small suitcase" and get rid of the "if"?

[–] Genrawir@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

That's just how research works most of the time. The experimental setup required to build a working prototype and prove the initial hypothesis is always going to be larger and more complex than a mass market appliance. If that appliance ever gets built depends on a huge number of factors too. If the process scales as expected, how complex the device is to produce and if a company thinks that it can make money on it. The researchers, meanwhile, are probably more worried about their next grant funding.

[–] Pons_Aelius@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

My guess: They don't have the money to do so.