Seawater & Desalination
How much salt water thrown away in waste/ To season love, that of it doth not taste - William Shakespeare
image by: Inhabitat
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A new way to remove salts and toxic metals from water
Most people on Earth get fresh water from lakes and rivers. But these account for only 0.007% of the world’s water. As the human population has grown, so has demand for fresh water. Now, two out of every three people in the world face severe water scarcity at least one month a year.
Other water sources – like seawater and wastewater – could be used to meet growing water needs. But these water sources are full of salt and usually contain such contaminants as toxic metals. Scientists and engineers have developed methods to remove salts and toxins from water – processes called desalination. But existing options are expensive and energy-intensive, especially because they require a lot…
Resources
Is there a beautiful, briny solution to the world’s clean water crisis?
Desalination is often dismissed as being expensive and polluting. But advances in tech are putting it back on the agenda.
Having Your Desalination and Eating It, Too
A small-scale experiment shows that brine waste from desalination can be turned into fertilizer for hydroponic plants.
If we don’t want to run out of water, we should look to the sun
Next generation solar technology could drive down the cost of scrubbing salt from seawater.
The Motion of the Ocean: Using Sea Waves to Desalinate Seawater
This novel technology, aptly called Wave2O, harnesses wave energy to power a reverse-osmosis desalination system. Complicated as it may sound, reverse osmosis desalination is simply a way of filtering water through a membrane that removes salt and other unwanted particles.
'The salt they pump back in kills everything': is the cost of Chile's fresh water too high?
Despite the clear necessity for a reliable water source, concerns over the ecological impacts of desalination observed by Muñoz have followed quickly behind the implementation of the technology.
Desalination Is Booming. But What About All That Toxic Brine?
Desalination plants turn seawater into drinking water, but also pump hypersaline water back into the environment. That's especially troubling because desal has become extremely popular.
As Water Scarcity Increases, Desalination Plants Are on the Rise
After decades of slow progress, desalination is increasingly being used to provide drinking water around the globe. Costs for processing salt water for drinking water have dropped, but it remains an expensive option and one that creates environmental problems that must be addressed.
California hopes saltwater will help to quench its thirst
It seems simple enough: Take the salt out of water so it’s drinkable. But it’s far more complex than it appears at first glance. It’s also increasingly crucial in a world where freshwater resources are progressively strained by population growth, development, droughts, climate change, and more. That’s why researchers and companies from the United States to Australia are fine-tuning a centuries-old concept that might be the future of quenching the world’s thirst.
Can making seawater drinkable quench the world's thirst?
Producing fresh drinking water from the sea - desalination - has always seemed to be the most obvious answer to water shortages. Our oceans cover more than 70% of the earth's surface and contain 97% of its water. But the energy needed to achieve this seemingly simple process has been costly. Now, thanks to new technologies, costs have been halved and huge desalination plants are opening around the world.
Cities turn to desalination for water security, but at what cost?
Modern industrial-scale desalination uses reverse osmosis to remove salt and other impurities from sea water. Water is forced under high pressure through a series of membranes through which salt and other impurities cannot pass. Design, construction and maintenance costs of these industrial plants are high. They also use massive amounts of electricity, which increases greenhouse gas emissions unless renewable energy sources are used. Another concern is the return of the excess salt to the environment.
Desalination Produces 50 Percent More Toxic Brine Than Previously Thought
The world’s desalination plants, which use energy intensive processes to remove salt from water, produce enough toxic brine each year to cover all of Florida under a foot of water.
Growth of desalination plants is a serious problem for marine life
Most of this brine ends up in the sea. In calm conditions, the dense brine can spread out over the sea floor and kill organisms by increasing salinity beyond what they can tolerate, says Callum Roberts at the University of York, UK. The brine is also contaminated with toxic chemicals used to stop sea life clogging pipelines.
Here's Why Desalination Won't Help Drought-Stricken California
Turning sea water into drinking water is expensive and can't supply the state's inland agricultural sector, which consumes 80 percent of California's water.
Ocean's Dilemma
The early 1960s were a time when there seemed to be no problem so big that American technology couldn’t conquer it, including the eternal threat of drought. The solution seemed simple: build industrial plants capable of generating fresh drinking water from a limitless source–the sea.
The World Can Make More Water From the Sea, but at What Cost?
Worldwide, desalination is increasingly seen as one possible answer to problems of water quantity and quality that will worsen with global population growth and the extreme heat and prolonged drought linked to climate change.
Water: The miracle molecule that does it all
By 2025, half of the world’s population will be living in water-stressed areas. DuPont Water Solutions is currently helping to solve this global crisis by addressing the most intractable water challenges with proven and reliable solutions that can improve the quality of life within communities-and in general—keep the clean water flowing. Here are some surprising ways that smart people are making water safer and more accessible for everyone.
A new way to remove salts and toxic metals from water
Most people on Earth get fresh water from lakes and rivers. But these account for only 0.007% of the world’s water. As the human population has grown, so has demand for fresh water. Now, two out of every three people in the world face severe water scarcity at least one month a year. Other water sources – like seawater and wastewater – could be used to meet growing water needs. But these water sources are full of salt and usually contain such contaminants as toxic metals.
Improved Desalination Technology is Quenching the World's Thirst
As our population grows, so does demand for natural resources. Large-scale desalination may be the solution to sustainable drinking water.
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