Clean Water by Using Graphite and the Sun

MIT Researchers Have Developed a Cheap Material that Desalinates Water Efficiently and Quickly Using Solar Energy

Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel did it to survive on the Pacific Ocean. Robert Redford used the trick inAll Is Lost.

When you're trapped on a boat, you can easily make fresh water, right? Simply let the sun heat up and evaporate salt water. Then trap the steam, condense it on a plastic surface and collect the fresh water. The liquid even gets sterilized in the process.

So why can't people around the world who lack clean drinking water do something similar?

"When water desalinates, it leaves behind the salt. Eventually the pores [of the graphite] will be clogged," saysGang Chenof MIT, who led the study. "We need to figure out how to handle that."

Although the material is highly efficient at converting solar energy into steam, the material still requires a cheap lens or mirror to concentrate sunlight by about tenfold. (By comparison, other technologies require 1,000-fold concentration of the light, which requires expensive optics.)

"We want to further reduce the concentration of sunlight needed," Chen says. "Then the technology wouldn't need fancy tracking technology to keep the sun focused on it."

Source: MIT

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Taxonomy

• Research
• Solar Energy
• Desalination