MIT develops solar powered portable desalination unit

Though water is abundantly available on our planet, drinking water is still short in supply. This is due to the fact that current desalination techniques are not feasible to be used on a large scale. However, a new approach called ion concentration polarization, developed by Postdoctoral Associate Sung Jae Kim and Associate Professor Jongyoon Han of the MIT’s department of Electical Engineering and Computer Science, could lead to the production of small portable desalination units powered by solar energy. Unlike the reverse osmosis method for desalination, this method separates salts and other impurities from water by electrostatically repelling them. This eliminates the use of a physical membrane, and making the process much more efficient. These desalination units are in the form of microchips. An array of 1600 such microchips on an 8-inch wafer will be able to purify about 15 liters of water per hour. Moreover, these chips will be powered using solar energy.

This technology gives great hope to solve the world’s water crises.
[MIT]