Solar-powered desalination system requires no extra batteries
news.mit.edu
MIT engineers built a solar-powered desalination system that produces large quantities of clean water despite variations in sunlight throughout the day. Because it requires no extra batteries, it offers a much more affordable way to produce drinking water, compared to other solar-driven designs.
  • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    1 month ago

    Even though this doesn’t use seawater, it has the same drawbacks. Once done, you have a whole lot of toxic brine you need to deal with.

    • aleats@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      61·
      1 month ago

      I’m not an expert, but couldn’t you pump the brine into a shallow reservoir and evaporate the water off, similar to how sea salt is made? If there isn’t a significant amount of contaminants, you could theoretically just sell that as well, but even if not, the solid salt is a lot easier to deal with

      • just_another_person@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 month ago

        “Brine” is the industry term for the waste byproduct of Desal operations. It’s not just salt, it’s all the particulates that were present in the water.

        Seawater Desal operations have already caused many ecological disasters with the stuff, but brackish groundwater would probably be even more dangerous, and including higher concentrations of radioactive material. So you get the water out, but then you’re left with the sludge of everything else that needs to be disposed of somehow.