Canadian Researchers Develop Innovative Seawater Desalination Device to Alleviate Global Water Shortage
TapTechNews September 19th news, Canadian researchers have developed a seawater desalination device that can efficiently evaporate water using sunlight to extract fresh water and automatically absorb water and rinse salt at night to avoid efficiency reduction due to salt deposition, providing a new solution to alleviate the global water shortage problem. The relevant paper has been published in the British journal Nature Communications.
According to the UN's World Water Development Report 2024, about 2.2 billion people globally cannot access clean drinking water. With the growth of population and the increase of global water consumption, the water shortage problem is becoming increasingly serious, so seawater desalination technology is crucial for many coastal and island countries.
As TapTechNews understands, traditional seawater desalination systems usually adopt the membrane method, by pumping seawater into the membrane to separate salt. This method has high energy consumption, and salt is prone to accumulate on the equipment surface, hindering water flow and reducing efficiency, so it requires frequent maintenance and cannot operate continuously.
In order to solve these problems, researchers from the University of Waterloo in Canada drew inspiration from the natural water cycle and designed a device similar to that of plants transporting water from the roots to the leaves, and this device can continuously desalinate seawater without the need for extensive maintenance.
Our inspiration comes from observing how nature maintains its own balance and the way water evaporates and condenses in the environment, said Dr. Michael Tam, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. The system we designed can induce water evaporation, transport it to the surface, and condense in a closed cycle, effectively preventing salt accumulation and thereby improving the efficiency of the equipment.
The device is also solar-powered and can convert about 93% of solar energy into energy, which is five times more efficient than current seawater desalination systems. In addition, it can produce about 20 liters of fresh water per square meter, which is the same as the amount of fresh water required for basic drinking and hygiene recommended by the World Health Organization per person per day.
The research team made the device using nickel foam coated with conductive polymers and thermally responsive pollen particles. This material can absorb sunlight in the entire solar radiation spectrum and convert solar energy into thermal energy. A thin layer of salt water is heated and transported upward on the polymer, similar to the natural flow of water in the capillaries of plants. As the water evaporates, the remaining salt moves to the bottom of the device, just like a backwash system in a swimming pool, preventing potential water blockage and ensuring the continuous operation of the system.
In the future, the researchers at the University of Waterloo plan to build a prototype device that can be deployed at sea to test the technology on a larger scale.