New Atlas

Science Audio available

New desalination method could get industry – and the environment – out of a very salty pickle

Matt Kennedy May 7, 2019

"Hypersaline brine" is industrial waste-water with salt levels that exceed even that of seawater. It’s a big, expensive, destructive problem which a team of engineers at Columbia University in New York City hope to solve with their solvent-based method of desalination.

The researchers believe that the temperature swing solvent extraction desalination method could be transformational for the ...

Environment Audio available

MIT tech could let desalination plants use their own brine waste

Ben Coxworth February 15, 2019

When salt is removed from seawater in desalination plants, the byproduct is a lot of highly-salty brine. Ordinarily, this is just dumped back into the sea, which can harm the environment. Thanks to a new treatment process, however, that brine could actually be used to desalinate more water.

An existing desalination plant in Hamburg, Germany

Materials

New desalination membrane produces both drinking water and lithium

Michael Irving February 11, 2018

Seawater is a complex cocktail of useful minerals, but it’s hard to separate the ones we need. Now a team of scientists from Australia and the US has developed a new water desalination technique that can not only make seawater fresh enough to drink, but recover lithium ions for use in batteries.

A scanning electron microscope image of metal-organic frameworks, crystals that can separate lithium from seawater

Energy

Can thorium reactors dispose of weapons-grade plutonium?

Michael Irving January 22, 2018

Thorium reactors have long been proposed as a cleaner, safer alternative to nuclear energy. Now Russian scientists propose a new thorium reactor design that can burn weapons-grade plutonium, producing power and thermal energy while disposing of nuclear waste at the same time.

According to a new Russian study, thorium reactors could provide a safer alternative to nuclear energy, ...

Environment

Scalable solar-powered desal system could supply water to homes and towns

Michael Irving June 20, 2017

Desalination makes saltwater more palatable and potable, but being a bit of an energy guzzler means it isn't the most practical solution in off-grid situations. A new system makes use of nanoparticles to harness the power of the sun and distill water more efficiently, without needing electricity.

The researchers with a scaled-up version of their solar membrane distillation system

Environment

Graphene membrane separates the salt from the seawater

Michael Irving April 3, 2017

Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a graphene-oxide membrane with a scalable, uniform pore size that can filter out even the smallest salts, giving it potential for producing drinking water from salt water without affecting the flow of the water too much.

Tweaking the size of its pores, researchers have developed a graphene-based membrane that can filter out ...

Environment

SAROS is a wave-powered off-grid desalination system

Eric Mack October 31, 2016

An American startup is looking to turn seawater into drinking water using only the motion of the ocean.

The SAROS wave-powered desalination system in action

Environment

Desalination plant would go deep to protect marine life

John Anderson July 31, 2016

A desalination project proposed for California’s central coast would draw water from one of the world's deepest submarine canyons, making it potentially less harmful to ocean life. The Deep Water Desal facility would require substantially less energy to operate than typical desalination plants.

Map of proposed Deep Water Desal desalination plant

Energy

Sodium battery contains solution to water desalination

Nick Lavars February 4, 2016

Researchers at the University of Illinois have come up with a new battery design that not only relies on salt water to store and release electricity, but removes the salt ions from the water in the process.

Illinois mechanical science and engineers found they could desalinate salt water more efficiently than traditional methods ...

Materials

Nanometer-thick membrane a new contender in the quest for more efficient desalination

Lynda Delacey November 24, 2015

Engineers have used nanotechnology to model a new membrane that can filter salt from seawater at higher volumes than ever before. The membrane, made from molybdenum disulfide, “pulls” clean molecules water through itself. Potentially, this could make desalination plants much more energy-efficient.

Schematic of a MoS2 sheet (molybdenum in blue and sulfur in yellow) filtering salt water on ...