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.
This is not a chemical desalination. It’s a classic solar distiller. The output is distilled water. You actually want to cut it with a bit of seawater, because drinking distilled water pulls salts and minerals out of you, and then you die.
I mean you die if you only drink distilled water and never consume anything else, but the same is still true of mineral water
I was unclear - that’s exactly what I meant. I was thinking of a suitcase-sized still being used in an emergency or survival scenario, for a time anything other than “very short term.”