MIT Watermaker

[Deep6]

I came across this, this morning, looks like it might have some application to people 'round here:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/i...tion-1015.html

[GordMay]

Greetings and welcome aboard the CF, Deep6 - and thanks for the interesting “heads up”.

New approach to water desalination - MIT Press
➥ New approach to water desalination

Below:
“A single unit of the new desalination device, fabricated on a layer of silicone. In the Y-shaped channel (in red), seawater enters from the right, and fresh water leaves through the lower channel at left, while concentrated brine leaves through the upper channel ...”
Photo: Patrick Gillooly/MIT

[svHyLyte]

If you examine the photograp closely, you will note that the desalinator is nothing but a Spectra water systems pump/membrane assembly. The innovation seems to have been managing the power supply so that the system only activated when the battery was sufficiently charged. That has been the practice aboard yachts for a very long time.

[GordMay]

The new MIT approach, to which I linked (not the same as Deep6's) is called ion concentration polarization (not R/O).

[Tellie]

I like the ion concentration polarization concept. If they can really build it where there is sufficent amount of water made per hour, keep it both in the size and cost range of present day RO systems these guys might get rich real quick. But the one Deep6 posted is as svHyLyte stated a Spectra Cape Horn powered by a tracking solar panel. Unfortunatly unless I' missing something it's old school and been done before. A simple call to Spectra would have saved them a lot of time and effort and perhaps brought them up to speed on the new stuff. Both articles state that these would be great for disater relief aid in Hati. I disagree. Smaller units like these have been sent to areas like Hati. They quickly become targets for a desperate people to steal for understandable reasons and usually have to be guarded and monitored 24/7. The amount of water these smaller units make is not worth the man power. The best method is usually very large military RO systems. Easy to drop in systems the size of tractor trailors that will produce thousands of gallons a day and warrant guards to secure them.