103
Engineers at MIT and in China develop desalination system which could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water (news.mit.edu)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/science@mander.xyz
8 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/10286254

It looks like the paper is paywalled and not yet on scihub but i did find 38 pages of supplemental information with more details than the article.

all 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 12 points 2 years ago

thanks for posting the supplement, which goes into considerable detail. There is also this diagram which shows how it works:

diagram of desalination device showing how water flows through an inner chamber with a membrane

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 10 points 2 years ago

    Having experienced a drought scare and having been a few weeks away from water being shut off and having to go stand in line and have the government and police hand out water, this would be amazing for us here in South Africa.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 4 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    But doesn't that produce salty brine that fucks up our ocean?

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 8 child comments
    •
  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago*

    The brine is a thing that needs handled, but there are ways to handle it.

    Unfortunately it is the kind of thing where the best solutions, like drying it and storing the salts, or pumping it underground, are expensive (and therefore hard to convince anyone to use), and the cheap solutions, like just dumping it back in the ocean, can have severe negative effects, like killing everything in the water around where it is dumped.

    Edit to add: although looking at this, depending on how they actually build it, it might sort of just turn ocean water into brine on the spot as it removes water. That would be basically like dumping it bqck in the ocean as far as effects, and doesn't seem ideal

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent