Engineers at MIT and in China develop desalination system which could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water - eviltoast
Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water
news.mit.edu
A new solar desalination system takes in saltwater and heats it with natural sunlight. The system flushes out accumulated salt, so replacement parts aren’t needed often, meaning the system could potentially produce drinking water that is cheaper than tap water.
  • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
    410·
    10 months ago

    It’s a solar distillation machine. The compact size is useful but there are dozens of ways to do this for almost free as long as you were within reach of an ocean. You can dig a hole in the sand put a piece of clear plastic over and a catch basin in the center and do the same thing. It’s interesting but not really earth-shattering.

    • Orbituary@lemmy.world
      163·
      10 months ago

      You can’t “just do this” because you live by the ocean. You’re over simplifying it because you aren’t impressed.

      For coastal people of impoverished or war-ridden locations with tainted or unavailable groundwater supplies, this is amazing if it becomes reality.

      Your normal isn’t most people’s reality. Clean drinking water is not ubiquitous.

      • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
        314·
        10 months ago

        Are you telling me you can’t make a solar still out of a sheet of plastic a bowl and a hole in the sand at the beach? Because if you don’t think that works we have no further need to communicate.

        • BassTurd@lemmy.world
          132·
          10 months ago

          Hope much drinkable water are you generating with your sand hole and plastic? This thing can allegedly generate liters per hour. Enough to sustain a decent sized group of people.

          • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
            13·
            10 months ago

            The numbers provided are qualified with “if they can scale it” up. So they don’t even actually know that they’ll get that rate.

            Edit: MythBusters did it They pulled a about a half cup an hour out of a 6-ft wide hole. Best case if you are engineering this you could put a frenzel lens in front of a pan of salt water your energy conversion would be like 99%. For using sunpower, The amount of water you’re going to extract is directly related to how much energy you can collect.

            I’ll believe their numbers when they actually bother to scale it.