Technology

59402 readers

2854 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

521

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

143 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] locuester@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But the water is all being returned to the ocean rather quickly. It’s not quite the same with CO2.

There’s some localized issues to deal with, but it’s not going to be a global salinity increase as we aren’t changing the form of the water and storing it, like the polar ice does.

So in fact, the ocean should already be desalinating slightly from the melting ice caps.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I thought about the ice caps, yeah. It's just something that warrants long term monitoring and observation.