Sleep is unbelievably important, so make sure yours is the best with Eight Sleep! Use my link www.eightsleep.com/ziroth or code 'Ziroth' for $200 / £200 off! If you see any other interesting engineering projects that you want me to make a video on, please let me know. This one was really interesting to explore!
AEROSPACE ENGNEER here: When I first saw the title of the video I was very sceptical considering some of the ridiculous claims made by other solar powered systems. Thunderf00t has debunked at least 1 of those. But this looks damn interesting and a genuine breakthrough. Because I work in industrial control systems and automation AND have worked in mining where they do a lot of water treatment I have worked on both RO and Multi-effect systems although the MES system I encountered was called a Mechanical Vapour Compression system. One thing people misunderstand with RO is that its NOT that cheap and its often compared to more expensive options. Its biggest advantage is that you can turn it off and on quite easily. With MES systems they are tricky to get started and you just can't turn them off and back on. One of the effects they use is to keep the system under vacuum because you can get the water to boil at around 70℃. I think the limit is about 67-68℃. One they are running and stable they use very little power because of the thermal exchanges going on. *BUT* those systems have 1 major drawback - they only operate over a very narrow range of flow rates. So you turn them on and cross your fingers they will start as expected. The best analogy I have is that MES systems are like a 2 stroke motorcycle. When they are on song in their happy place they are brilliant. When they are not happy and off song they are horrible. And if you're wondering why and aerospace engineer is interested in water treatment. Ask what would be one of the first items of critical infrastructure for a moon base.
@@CertifiedSkankno, he's right WE (America + the west in my case) did not cause Russia to invade Ukraine, tell Venezuela to prepare to invade Guyana, or restart tensions between Ethiopia and its neighbors. The wealth and power isn't quite that overconcentrated (yet), not that it would necessarily guarantee a solution if it was because we live mostly in democracies and not ecofascist states (for now).
The hyper-salinity issue isn't down to the method used, but the amount you use it. It's the same amount of salt left over that has to be returned to the ocean. Yes, the trick is to dilute it rather than dump it highly concentrated in one big go, and doing this where there are natural ocean currents to circulate it will give the best results.
Ha! I didn't make it that far, not even close. Did he start with "Water is essential to all life on earth?" I blocked out the memory. Thanks for the time stamp. I'll start there.
I found his explanations of the problem and current solutions helpful in understanding why this new method is a potential breakthrough. Watched from the beginning to the end! I also rather liked his accent.
Videos like thus don't start addressing their main topic until after the first ten minutes is done for the sole reason of helping their youtube algorithm. Resulting in more monetary pay out for the youtube channel.
I did a Project for my High school science class(which was 30 years ago) and all i used was 2 glass bottles 1 painted Black and the othe clear. I place the black one lower then the clear bottle and placed the clear bottle in the shade and the black bottle im the sun and connected them with a tube. The water in the black bottle was heated and water vapors evaporated and collected in the cooler clear glass bottle. I used nothing more them 2 glass bottles, some black paint, a small piece of tubing, some salt water and the Sun shining above us.
@@rwyo83 I agree you'll get more from rainwater. However, if this method only produces a couple liters a day, it's still a couple more liters than you would have had otherwise ... which might be really useful if rain isn't falling as much as you'd like.
This would be great for off shore sailboats and motor boats which use "water makers" to produce fresh water. These units are reverse osmosis devices but they use a lot of power which is a problem for boats running on solar.
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 Do you understand just how rude it is to intrude with your preaching? You are far more likely to turn off more people than you are to save any souls with your off-topic bible quotes. Do you actually want to drive people into the arms of the Adversary?
Unless the "gravity feed" part of this can be changed to pump driven, my guess is this wohld not be good for boats, due to their constant motion. Even when at anchor, they rock due to wave motion.
I'm guessing that the process described in this video requires an immense amount of horizontal space to gather enough energy to make the process work, and a pretty significant amount of vertical space to create significant temperature differences to cause the water to move quickly enough to distill the desired amount of water. I suspect that a thermodynamic conservation of energy is present here that if you compare the usual osmosis driven system to this or any other distillation system, the amount of energy required to run the system and produce clean water is the same but because the osmosis system uses an external source of energy to pressurize, it works faster to produce the same amount of water.
@Ziroth As a kid I tried making a clear dome with reflective sides that focused sunlight onto a floating hot-plate which was washed by wave action to clear the salt residue. I was soundly discouraged by people that knew what they were talking about. I also thought that with cunning alternating reflective and non-reflective tubing the water vapour could be transported a considerable distance from the coast, then at the journey's zenith, allowed to precipitate and flow to a reservoir. This episode rekindled all that happy philosophising. Thank you.
@@captaincucaracha Um no. They do know what they were talking about as they soundly discouraged him. Bro do you even know what he said? Some people are better off not saying anything. Stop trying to help someone when you yourself need help.
@@Silentjackll I know exactly what he said, but my main issue was these “people” were being discouraging and they don’t know what they are saying which can actually permanently discourage a child at that age, and it can seriously hamper further curiosity as they develop new ideas with age. It’s not to say the science isn’t real but science facts can be used by people with big egos, and wield it to make themselves feel superior while they judge others and perceive them as imbeciles compared to themselves. It’s people very much like yourself, given your reply, that want to force the idea onto others that they should stop trying to help or believe in things when you didn’t even try to understand my intentions or thought process. While I understand your statement and can understand your take away from my comment you should really try and do the same.
@@captaincucaracha This happened to me early on. I was told by teachers, family, friends, etc... that I was nuts. I was told there was no way I would get a job as a software engineer, and there was no way I could do this without a degree. I wrote my first line of code at 8 years old, and instead of being discouraged, I persevered. With no degree, I've already worked at FAANG (the most prestigious set of companies in tech) and hyper-growth startups. Now I run my own company, and we're profitable and hiring. If I listened to almost ANYONE in my close orbit throughout my childhood, I would've never achieved what I already did by 22 years old. I'm older now, but sometimes people don't know what they're discussing. This was all used as fuel to get where I knew I belonged.
I live in Kiribati and I was on Banaba during the drought And we are are tying to facilitate a small drill rig for simple wells; Love your article, accurate, too. The question is : when will it be available ?
Unless the idea is patented or even if it is, the terms may be easy enough (or not) for anyone to create their own system although as the article describes may require some experimentation and adjustment. I'm wondering though if the complicated design can't be simplified to an enclosed single box with at least one if not more artificial floors within and eliminate the hydrophobic membrane. The result is creating a microcosm of an ocean or any deep body of water in which the water surface is super heated due to its shallowness and evaporates/distills while the depth naturally circulates sending brine to the bottom and bringing up new source water for evaporation. The current oceans work this way, although there is no artificial floor that separates the surface from below, it's well known that light penetrates the ocean's surface only down to about 30' and the surface environment fish like is only down to about 12', creating these different levels or strata naturally.
Thank you for your well researched, accurate video, and kind reply. I think it is rather complicated to source materials to experiment as every bit comes from overseas. When this broke last year I collected the academic papers. Too. There are some solar style ones that looks like a solar panel 3.5 x 7.5 feet using a small stream for thin film over black hot backing, under clear 6 mil plastic They produce 18 lts/ day under ideal conditions and though there is a retail price of Aud$750 they can be copied. We have two large capacity RO units being built by New Zealanders to serve the needs for the 64,000 people of South Tarawa. But they will need lots of Power to run them. Banaba has a water lens, and based off wells on Nauru we should be able to facilitate the drilling of 3” bore holes with hand or solar pumps. The drill rigs (US$15,000 from China) are the size of a compact car with a little derrick , plus a large air compressor on a trailer. I think this is good direction if only as a back up as after the drought Aid had provided for some more RO units, but will not last long due to qualified maintenance. Thank You, I subscribed. @@tonysu8860
Thank you for your kind words! It's always hard to know the timeline of research to implementation - but with the media attention on this I would hope funding pots would be open to take this to the next level. Potentially a spin-off from the universities will put this into action in the next few years!
@@tonysu8860I would think that absent having a tank that is actually 30+ feet deep so the water physically blocks sunlight from penetrating deeper, you'd need an artificial barrier to attenuate sunlight. I think MAYBE it could be possible to create a polarized lens that is porous enough for water turnover, but making it porous enough for that might defeat the efficacy of polarization and thus prove insufficient to stop sunlight penetrating.
Modification of an existing technique for harvesting salt from sea water could also provide fresh water using solar energy. With this technique salt is extracted by allowing sea water into ponds, then sealing them off. Over time the water evaporates leaving salt behind. I envisage having a central pond containing sea water, surrounded by a moat for collecting fresh water, and the whole thing covered with a transparent dome. Energy from the sun evaporates the water in the central pond, which then rises and condenses on the dome, before running down into the moat. Water is extracted from the moat and salt from the pond. Occasionally the central pond would have to be allowed to dry out completely to allow for salt removal, so more than one setup would be required for continuous production. Due to evaporation rates this method may not provide sufficient water for urban use, but it could be used to gradually turn arid areas into fertile land.
They are too busy trying to figure how to make desalination profitable, not to make it work efficiently. That's why your idea won't work, it's too simple and you can't confuse governments to waste money when they understand how it works.
edit: as @javierititin mentions Ziroth does mention the original work around 11:10 and I failed to pick that up. Original comment left for history as I still feel the focus should have been on the advancements over the years vs just the promises made in 2019/2020: It's been nearly 4 years since they released that paper. I was hoping for more up to date information than what came out in 2020.
Video is garbage. Ryan there (I guess it's Ryan) FAILS to explain that this is a followup to that 2020 paper and that the whole point is in using multiple stages and convection circulation. Instead, he twaddles for 95% of the video about ancient Romans, water "lenses" sleep SPONSORS and whatnot. Garbage. Cell link is useful, if you have the time to read it. Mit link isn't - it fails to read and interpret the study properly. E.g. Amount of water desalinated is said to be 5 liters per square meter per hour - when that's the value for basically 0% of salt in water. At 20% (percentage by weight, 26.3% would be saturation point for NaCl) the amount of fresh water is 1.78 liters per square meter per hour. Still a lot to achieve without salt accumulation on the membrane but it indicates that folks at mit.edu don't really get the study and don't bother reading through it properly.
@@dennisk648 Probably, but a new video about an old subject should have new information, even if that information is "it's been years and they still can't improve the efficiency or bring down the cost of the device. It hasn't moved anywhere near production."
The problem with desal is energetics. Fresh water will move into areas of higher salt concentration. This is mostly how trees pull water from their roots to their leaves.
The headline of this video is all about MIT's process. But you don't get to this until about 11 minutes into the 15 minute video. Now I think Kiribati is a worthy and interesting subject but so are the thousands of other places that need desalinated water. And do we really need to rehash at length the other methods of desalination on every single video about new desalination innovations? You can't just let people look up the thousands of other videos that explain all that? Very tiresome all in all.
It's because the UA-cam at algorithm does not prioritize videos that are below 10 minutes long. So all creators have to pad their videos so they're over 10 minutes long. And they also have to work on getting the maximum minutes watched so they can't just make a 15 minute video with the stuff you want to see at the very beginning because you'll stop watching after the first 4 minutes. It used to not be this way. The UA-cam algorithm used to not prioritize videos that were over 10 minutes. But they put that rule in and suddenly UA-cam is a source of information became a real headache. Now of course with the success of tick tock UA-cam has been forced to be a platform for shorts as well so now you have the opposite case where you have tiny shorts that can get millions of views very quickly.
Frankly, using an example of where and how desalination is done today and then explain what this tech does, save me a bunch of time, which I don't have. That said, if I want to understand more about this entire issue and process, I'll then go digging: your personal mileage will very. It's pretty well done presentation.
We had an experimental desalination project on town land near the shore. It used only solar to evaporate and distill seawater from a shallow black polymer lined ponds. I never did learn the results or prospects from the project. It lasted about four years.
Seems like it would be using a lot of land. Heating water in shallow (less than an inch) glass covered black trays works well. Problem in England is that for 6 months the sun is too low and bounces off the horizontal glass/polycarbonate cover. Polythene sheeting is much cheaper and easier to handle than glass, think in India there are groundwater issues in places. Heat the water with a clear polythene cover, and condense it for drinking on stainless steel? Need to keep this cool. All about humidity, relative humidity, temperature and condensation point.
@@plinble Yes, polythene sheet on an incline over basins. Like I said, experimental. There were i think 4 such constructions, about 20' x 40 ' each. Galvanized pipe frames. It was about 30 years ago. No attempt at drinking, just testing the feasibility. Eventually they fell into disrepair. It was in the paper when it began but I recall seeing no follow-up or results. Obviously monitoring for bacteria and salinity would be required if use was intended. No reason it wouldn't work, but it probably wouldn't produce enough for large scale use, being passive and relying only on sunlight. Perhaps in mid-latitude arid regions it might be practical for small communities.
Jesus I'm 10 minutes in and you still haven't explained how their system works that's why I clicked on your video I don't need a lecture about rising sea water
Keep in mind that if freshwater is extracted from salt water in a system that only has an inlet, the salt concentration will increase until the solution can no longer hold the salt at which point it will clog the system unless that saltier solution is taken out via some mechanism like an outlet pipe or other method. One use for an outlet pipe could be a salt production plant but you would need certain amount of land to further evapourate to solid salt and sea ports to allow you to ship it out.
While fresh potable water is relatively rare, saline groundwater is much more common. While not a permanent fix, this technology could allow us to extend the life of our aquifers for another few decades. Also, we could build large saline aqua-ducts/canals - allowing seawater to flow into artificial inland seas that we could then purify for local use.
That's happening already. As low lying aquifers are getting depleted and in tandem, sea levels are rising, saltwater intrusion is becoming quite a problem.
That sounds like problems in the waiting. I can easily see salt water contaminating and wrecking havoc on local ecosystems. Normally it's fine if it isn't being tampered with, but drilling and pumping (which will be done for as long as it's operational) is only one major leak away.
Back in early 80s my idea was something else: Build big cone higher than 12 meters above the sea surface (make it 15, for example), with the open bottom dipped in the sea. Conical shape should allow the remaining salt to fall back to the sea, so, the inner surface of the cone might be covered with Teflon. At the top of the cone vacuum pump would pull the vapor out, and push it through pressurized pipe system down. The valve at the exit of the pipe would keep the pressure inside and condense the vapor, raising its temperature with the pressure. The pipe would be spiral, long, and integrated into the cone wall to give the heat back to the water inside the cone. Building the cone is more expensive, but it completely removes the need for the expensive membranes, which should all together be cheaper in the long run.
Sounds a bit overly complicated, but it is effectively what they are doing here as well. Use solar heating to evaporate the water, collect the evaporate, use seawater to condense evaporate. Which makes me wonder why no one has done it before.
if you're always dumping the salt and wastes back into the ocean you increase the concentration. if enough places do this long enough it'll make the ocean super concentrated killing most sea life.
Spreading out the waste sea water dumps around the coastline should mitigate that. Maintaining a low constant outflow rate, the sea water should mix quite quickly I assume.
@@Khanstant Mate, that is what the rivers ARE currently doing and HAVE been doing for hundreds of millions of years. I haven't run the numbers, but i doubt it is going to be a problem ANY time soon.
The Ekman Effect also drives both underwater and surface currents which then drive the water and dissipate any hyper salinity in the region. Desalination is a good solution for coastal regions but for inland/landlocked regions we need to harvest rainwater by sequestering it through deep bore wells to recharge the ground water table.
I like to picture the desalination plants along the coasts and pipelines running inland to areas of need, including natural/wild areas. Just think, when they leak, all we get is more grass. Sigh. Of course, flooding could be an issue, but I like to also think of shut-off valves and redundant safety systems.
The question is always, can you scale it up and it still be effective? Many times things can work fantastic on small scale, while being impractical, insanely high maintenance, very expensive to scale up to provide for a city. It's like the difference between setting rules for your house and setting rules for a country. Requiring everyone to clean their room at a certain time and go to bed by a certain time and so on, may be optimum for your home and have you living a near-perfect life, but it can't work for an entire country. This is the issue many people don't understand when they invent a tiny elegant low power or minimal power, cheap form of solving a problem. You can get a sheet of plastic and a bucket, a rock, dig a hole, let condensation drip into the bucket or or put a plastic bag around the branch of a tree and collect water. These are simple, cheap practically free ways to get water, but you can't practically scale this for providing water for a city.
@@andrecarvalho9637 It has to be large scale because you need wide area to catch the sunlight. Normal households don't have that. Google: evaporation rate of body of water (for example, how much water evaporate from a pool in a day). It's not much. I assume the system works at 1 atm because it's cheaper to widen the area than to lower the pressure (to increase evaporation rate).
Lots of ideas work in the lab under controlled conditions. Scaling it up for real world usage is the roadblock. Usually cost and or reliability/maintenance prevents it's adoption.
did you understand how they remove the salt? this whole thing sounds good to be true. someone explain how they flush salt away without physical maintenance or pumps?
@@cubertmisoI vaguely understand the ideas behind this device. Beyond me to say yes or no.But it will be just an oddity if it is not capable of working in the real world.
Massive red flag that they are quoting prices lower than tap water. The cost of tap water also includes the huge amount of effort that goes into getting it into your house in a safe condition (though I understand in certain parts of America that's not the case - Flint, Michigan for example). Very easy to just desalinate a litre of water and say "look, that costs less than tap water", but one is sitting in a jug in the lab and the other is flowing out of your tap.
The sun tracking requirements are not addressed considering the angle of the water cell is fixed however a sun tracking fresnel lens and mirror could provide a reasonable solution for maintaining the light intensity constant during sun transition .
Why would you bother with the lens if there isn't a temperature minimum and you're bringing in supplemental heat anyways? Are you aware of the concept of surface area?
@@pupip55 A solar tracking system is almost always more expensive than just buying a second system to double your output. Unless you manually adjust it to follow the sun, but if you're that desperate for something as basic as water, I don't see you getting your hands on one of these.
8:42 For cheaper options, the islanders should use filtered (but still saline) seawater to bathe and do things with, then rinse briefly with clean water, and keep the tapwater for drinking purposes or crop watering only. Bathing with filtered seawater is good for the skin too. This can reduce the needs from regular water use from 180 liter per person daily need to as little as 20 liters, even when showering or bathing with the same result. This would equate 6000 liters for the entire island's needs daily given 300 people. (besides any crops that is, which can still be watered by rainwater that then needs no filtering.) 6000 liters is a mere 6 m3. That much a single boat could handle.
Well I guess it could be considered, but then you need to run 2 sets of pipes everywhere (fresh and salty) all for a mediocre solution. A similar happened in Europe where there were two kinds of electricity and it was phased out eventually
@@BIELSIMON If fresh water is a problem, then the solution is either getting more, or changing the way it is used. The latter has the most benefit, since it requires a low maintainance secondary system of pipes, easily implemented on a small scale. The former is a costly high maintainance water income through desalination. There are no other solutions, either use less, or gain more, period.
I think salt makes soap less effective (less foam), but you could rinse off with salt, do a quick rinse with freshwater, lather up with the water off, rinse it off with salt water, then rinse off with fresh water or whatever. I guess the exact details of how to do it, would be determined over time. However, I get what you mean, anything that can use filtered salt water or filtered salt water with slightly less salt, could be used cheaper for anything that you can get away with using it on, maybe like rinsing out containers or rinsing off dishes before you wash them and so on. Basically, using the salt water to get some of the initial bulk rinsing done, sort of like rinsing a dirty dish in dirty dish water, where it still comes out dirty, but it's less dirty and stuff is hydrated so it is removed by clean soap and water easier.
That's absolutely mind-blowing. I can't help but love the ingenuity of using a natural phenomenon to clean, cycle and pump the water through the system to both prevent clogging and hypersalinity. An output of 6 litres per hour for an average of 12 hours of sunlight in Kiribati means a potential 72 litres per day. That's an absolute game-changer.
This would only replace the current cost of desalination in those areas that require desalination as the first step in a drinking water treatment process. Unless the membranes in use will also remove other containments (e.g. bacteria, virus, heavy metals, etc...), you will still need to provide some form of treatment to the water to make it potable. Readily accessible sea water from a shallow well could be a good location to source your drinking water, assuming the application is localized to a coastal facility. It would be a less favorable choice to select from a bay or other beach location simply because of the high incidence of bacterial and "trash" polluting the water. I don't see how they arrived at this process being cheaper than U.S. tap water, unless the tap water was sourced from salt water to begin with. At which point you are simply reducing the cost of the desalination process and assuming the rest of the treatment process costs and any distribution costs remain equal.
Probably hyperbole, guys at MIT can't really be that bad at arithmetic. There are places in the US where potable water is simply pumped to the point of use. My farm would be an example. With basic maintenance to the system, we have had a cost of about $1500 for all the water used in the past 60 years. There is an energy cost, but my electric bill runs $6-$7 per month for the entire farm currently, and a bit of that is administrative cost so it is negligible. As for this new device, I suspect you are correct. A biofilm will render it useless in less than a week using raw seawater.
I still feel that system that isolates the salt itself as a product and not just a waste consideration is in our best interest. Take a little journey in the energy and human costs of the salt industry around the world rabbit hole too. The boutique salt market could easily provide an additonal income to these places.
Every element in the crust is dissolved in seawater and can be distilled out. Instead of looking at brine as a waste, we should look at it as a fluid mineral to be refined. The salt could be used in sodium-ion batteries, or split into pure sodium and chlorine which have industrial uses; even gold and uranium are dissolved in seawater.
Yes but the problem is that in trying to isolate these we create too much salt and not enough water to be practical. The system reduces the negative effects of the waste while generating what is needed. Solid tech.
@@nobody6715 Spot on. People really need to understand the MASSIVE brine waste that comes from reverse osmosis-- we could extract minerals, sure, but there are several problems. First of all, those minerals aren't locked away in stone, but actively playing a role in the ecosystem we are pulling water from. It's not like regular mining. Not only that, but we would need DECADES for the technology that could make use of the new mineral surplus to scale up. It doesn't exist already, and that takes time. Until then, you're just producing waste, and massive amounts of it every day. The key to this system is that the water can be relatively safely returned to the sea with some clever thinking. It takes advantage of the fact that when supply is limitless, efficiency is less important. Instead of extracting 70% of the fresh water from one gallon of seawater, just extract 10% of the water from 7 gallons in the same time. Concentrating the salt by 10% makes it safe(r) to add back to the ecosystem where it came from, with a little planning.
@@noahj6727 destroying the ocean slowly instead of quickly. Brilliant. It's no wonder young people hate boomers. We make the job of living harder for future generations.
@@y0nd3r It's not going to destroy the ocean dude, the problem with desalination plants is local not global. Humans don't and won't use anywhere near enough water for it to cause any issues globally. Not to mention the water humans use doesn't just vanish, it evaporates and ends up back in the oceans, so any extra salinity would be re-diluted.
Ingenious, but still too expensive. In my country (Greece) tap water costs about 0.5 $ per 1,000 liters in the mainland, so a quarter of the cost of this desalination process. However, on small islands, water costs about 2$ per 1,000 liters too, so in that case it is comparable, but only for small islands. In the case of larger islands, it is more cost effective to build a dam or reservoir and collect rainwater. Still, with a lot of sunlight, like here in Greece, it could be a viable alternative.
@@deadbeef576 Especially as there is no one price for water in the US. I've been in small towns near springs where it was $10 a month, unlimited. 0.2/1000 liters if you were watering your lawn. I've been in small cities midwest where its 0.8/1000 liters. And then there are places where they water the desert, and its 5x that. In those places I might be interested in this.
For widespread use in a continental setting, the chief cost of desalination vis a vis other water sources is transporting the water uphill from sea level. Moving large amounts of water is extremely expensive. However, as with energy, we are moving into an economy of scarcity for water. At some future time, energy is likely to become more abundant, as technologies improve, which will mean that the energy cost of transporting desalinated water uphill will become more affordable.
Got a question out of curiosity. Lets say if there is a fund of approximately 1 million USD to solve a nation's water crisis, how would you scale up and apply the desalination model or inspire people to innovate/invest more on this technology?
This could be a game changer for Australia.The Great Artesian Basin contains about 65 million gigalitres of water, or the equivalent of 130,000 Sydney Harbours! The water is contained within layers of porous rock (aquifers), held in place under pressure by layers of impermeable rock. The interior where the basin is located is the iconic landscape Australia is known for, kangaroos and red dust. When it does rain the desert blooms, so there is nothing wrong with the soil. Its not sand even if there is a place called the Great Sandy desert. The MIT finding could open up a huge breadbasket. The Artesian basin is replenished by rainfall along the western flank of the Blue Mountains where the capping impermeable rock comes to surface. The water takes a million years at 1m/year to arrive. This does mean a permanent reliable water supply covering more than 1.7 million square kilometres. (Australia is a big place and the basin represents only 22% ) Cloud cover varies between 53% and 93%, it is not scorching hot all the time, and when it rains, it rains. The MIT finding could dramatically change the world's food supply.
I hope this one pans out, because that would be a miracle technology. You could literally just make a raft that floats offshore and pumps freshwater back… I hope that the hydrophobic membrane isn’t too hard to manufacture, I have no idea what goes into that. I know that there are some exciting new micro-fabrication techniques that can make hydrophobic surfaces, but surely it’s not that complicated if it’s claimed to be that cheap.
This is really a fantastic breakthrough applying modalities in thermodynamics, hydrology, biochemistry and engineering. I’m excited to see if the suitcase desalinators will work for this island nation. I hadn’t heard of this island nation, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for further news. Great show ❤️
10 місяців тому+2
Invoking the (badly explained) global thermohaline circulation for this gadget is quite a stretch. Simple convection would be the more appropriate concept.
People will literally find any reason to tear apart someone else's work... Thank you for putting in the time and effort to research, write, record, edit, and present this video--free to the people that would act as though they paid for it, no less. I'm sure I don't need to say it given your sub level, but they haven't created anything worth while, so they have no basis upon which to judge. I appreciated your exposition--even if I knew some of it or the paper is a few years old (looking through the comments) because nothing is new and telling the story of a thing is difficult, often underappreciated work.
Given most places like Kiribait are close to ocean level, the average humidity of the air is high... so I'm surprised they're not looking at atmospheric water capture... No need for brine disposal, direct clean water etc... Might be a good area to read up, @Ziroth
Harvesting water from the atmosphere is a very exciting solution for fresh water. There are several new technologies used to accomplish this and it's going to be a workable solution and it is being commercialized already.
Jeez, do some research on the physics of things - atmospheric water capture is ridiculously energy inefficient - you would need hundreds of square meters of solar panels to run what is essentially a dehumidifier to produce a pathetic amount of water. Thunderfoot has ample videos debunking this crap - the raw physics doesn't work.
@@bsuddzenthe commercialization is the roadblock. Though the output is low, it is a net positive, with nearly zero energy input after manufacture. Sadly most philanthropy efforts focus on wells and traditional desal. Not sure why. There have been alternative methods for centuries. Plus condensation is nearly free, and both low tech and low energy (used in life rafts for example) . I suspect the real issue for these guano island nations, is overpopulation with regard to natural resources coupled with squandering the systems they have been given previously. Sadly the inability to build in a profit margin for new technology means these new low energy methods will sit to the sideline for years until energy costs rise enough to justify their use or innovation makes the cost to produce even lower.
How many people would like air conditioning on this island? Why not provide air conditioning, and collect the fresh water from the condenser? It's a two fer.
This is an awesome breakthrough. I hope it comes to market and solves this issue for many communities. However, most miracle inventions disappear into the abyss and gets gobbled up by some government to never reach the populations in which it was originally designed.
Can you provide some examples? Most 'miracle inventions' disappear because in the end they don't work. They run into problems scaling up out of a laboratory into the real world.
That's a very conspiratory view. Most "miracle" inventions turn out to not be so great after all. It usually has to do with how expensive manufacturing is, lack of scalability, side issues that only appear when taking a small thing and making it bigger etc. Like in this video somehow the brine from the big desalination plants is a huge problem (and it usually is) but this new invention doesn't (more accurately it is omitted).
People are basically selfish and stupid. If this reaches the communities it was designed for, you can fully expect them to destroy the ocean environment near the island or shore and eventually make the ocean uninhabitable. Did you not see in this video where he said people are already putting the solids back into the ocean with the current kind of desalinator? Everything is dead. Humans are like children running with knives. We are gonna kill ourselves.
ok, I am calling b.s. on the suppression by governments or a cabal. We are still struggling to make basic inventions better, cheaper, longer lasting ,scalable, and with lower maintenance costs. If it's such an amazing invention. You get the book and movie deals and the talk circuit as a reward. Therefore just post the solution and schematics on the internet and as we know once it's there, it's hard to suppress said information. It's been that way since the 1990s and the internet had email, simple text, and then the web.
The slanted design also lets the device catch more sunlight, win win. It will be interesting to see how a water panel matches up against doing the same thing with raw solar power. There may be a future where specialized panels are mixed and matched to cover a variety of roles.
I have a few theories in mind. Wouldn't it be efficient to make a desalination plant underwater? It does not have to be too deep. Heck, it might as well be a platform with the machine submerged. Just deep enough for the sea to be constantly above it. So that the input and flow are constant naturally. Or at least have a constant pressure if it's deep underwater. The only problem that I have in mind is that the ocean "might" just become too salty. But then again, I feel like the only logical way to remove excess waste/chemical is to ship them into space. 😅
4:01 South Tarawa is *not* more densely populated than Tokyo. That would be insane and completely unrealistic. It _does_ have higher population density than the wider Tokyo metropolitan area, because of course that's the size of a small country and is largely suburban and rural.
After 2 minutes in gave up. Seems like old news about TMSS technology. See published paper "Ultrahigh-efficiency desalination via a thermally-localized multistage solar still", Journal: Energy & Environmental Science, Issue 3, 2020. The MIT News article seems more like a fund raiser than anything substantive.
Great for small communities, also look very promising. But looks somes way to go for large scale solutions: - a small water treatment plant produces 10,000 Liters per hour, at a cost of about 0.0001$ per Liter (1000L per 0,10$). - tap water consumption is commonly 200L+ per day, per person. The displayed system also seem geographically locked: any short, sudden period of frost would destroy the intricate piping. (I have a degree in the field, and worked for a few years with a wide range of equipment, but I'm most accustomed to river-to-tap installations)
The issue I see is bio films. Even if you filter the water stuff will get in and grow. The unit will only be hot part if the day and I especially doubt the lower layers are going to sanitize. It will make a nice paper or two but I strongly sense this will fall into the 'who knew it would be so hard' category. Oh and usually there are a room full of people who were willing and able to point out the problems and challenges that are inherent in the 'solution'
Is there a reason we can't eat or use the salt from desalination in some other way? Why do we HAVE to put the salt from desalination directly back into the ocean?
At 13: 45 you said it runs for 180 hours without any reduction of performance. At 14:52 you said that it would run for several years before needing maintenance. What happens at 180 hours? If you have to do something at 180 hours wouldn't that be called some kind of supervision or maintenance?
I understand that it can run with suboptimal performance after 180 hours, and it would still _function_ at whatever performance for several years. Don't know how the performance degrades over time though
Can someone clarify - 1. Due to the tilt, the salt keeps circulating and due to high density will go back to the sea. 2. The second unit gets salt water both from the first unit and the sea.
Many years ago, I spent three fire seasons on a Forest Service fire lookout with a steep, mile-long trail to a spring, the only water source. I built a solar distiller with a three chambered wooden trough, covered by a tent of clear plastic sheeting. The sun evaporated dirty water in the center trough, it condensed on the inside of the plastic sheet, and trickled into troughs on either side. I recycled dish washing water for additional dish washing, laundry and bathing and reduced four to five trips to the spring per week, to two trips per week.
Then the survivors wait until it is sunny of course. For info there are already lifeboat solar units that evaporate sea water. Plus they all should have some water supplies, to keep the survivors alive initially. My interest in this is that it is more efficient, so would make better use of the sun when it is visible. If they can make it small and rugged enough for that purpose.@@tzm1843
With how important the angle of this desalinator is for maintaining the currents that keep the filters clear and the saltier water leaving the system, my concern would be that the movement of the boat would disrupt its function. I think they do make inflatable solar stills for lifeboats, though.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Agreed, and much the same as my thinking, on all points. The team involved seem pretty innovative though. They may find a fix, if they look into it. Perhaps they could even harness wave motion to help the process?
I believe this was just the test length they chose, in a real application this would be in the open water where the brine would mix with the open sea, so it could carry on operating much much longer! Thanks for the comment :D
Great news. Scaled up, this could put a dent in fears here in the American West of drought, wildfires, and urban sprawl. Thank you MIT and Shanghai Universities! Now I want to find out how soon these will be available for home use and municipal use; as well as the name of the spin-off companies in which one can invest. Thanks Ziroth.
what about the brine problem though? salt isn't being removed from the system so even if you add more sea water to flush it through, it still accumulates and could crystalise and clog the system.. this makes me think only thermal distillation is the best way to go environmentally so we can easily remove salt from a pot after and no sea life has to drown.
This young man is doing research he is helping us to understand things we need to get clear.. I appreciate him.. even if he doesn't always give us ALL the information we would like,. We can do research also. That's all I have to say.
Thank you Ziroth, this is so much better than other tech channels because you address questions that get air brushed, such as what exactly happens to the salt in reverse osmosis. Your insight on Kiribati was phenomenal! Brilliant! The best tech post I've watched. Incidentally, you're the only UA-camr who can explain why the new Toyota water engine doesn't break the first law of thermodynamics? Can you please explain water engines as brilliantly as you have just explained desalination?
From maldives here ... while yes most of the cities and resorts get water by desalination All or most the islands don't have it yet. they are a work in progress we have been getting water from rain to drink and from wells for other uses. The development of desalination plants is slow amongst islands due to the cheap cost and reliability of utilizing our own land for the water we get from wells and water we collect from rain. Its not the same for cities due to the dense populations and higher demand , and for resorts its easier for them to use desalination plants as they make enough profit to cover the costs
From the video, here is what I understand. Pros: The machine is passive The machine doesn’t allow salt accumulation easily The machine does not create hyper saline water at a fast rate The machine is solar powered The machine is small Cons: The machine is solar powered (though this can be solved by having an alternative heating method) The machine is small (can be scaled up if need be, not that big of a problem) The membranes are in a difficult to maintain spot, requiring the entire machine to be pulled out of the housing. (Better maintenance options are to be expected) The machine doesn’t have a solution for heavy metals (sea water may contain heavy metals, not exactly healthy nor easy to remove) Overall, this is an ingenious device that barely costs anything to run! Further innovation should make the mechanics easier to maintain, function, and replace! I have high hopes for this tech!
There are other methods to obtain fresh water. With a power source, (including solar) you can use atmospheric water generators, which extract moisture directly from the air, without mucking about with the salt water.
it's cheaper to pass saline water through RO system than using a Dehumidifier, like 100 times cheaper, and RO systems are expensive. a dehumidifier will always be equal of less cost efficient than distillation (same energy required, but heat pumps could increase the overall efficiency of distilling over condensing). they have been trying to make startups of glorified dehumidifiers for decades and all have gone under because: water is not drinkable (the contamination in the fins make it biologically active) the results are pathetic against initial claim (like thousands time lower, as physically expected), and inconsistent as you need really hot and humid air to get "good performance" the cost per liter of water is so high that it starts to be reasonable to move fresh water in container through the ocean.
This is incorrect. Atmospheric water reclamation is both cheaper and more effective than desalinization in many areas of the world (I use reclamation because they don't "generate" anything and that term has always bothered me for this reason). And, distillation isn't even the most efficient form of desalinization, in fact, it's the least desirable due to the energy required to heat the water. Also, distillation IS air water reclamation but with the added step of putting the water into the air in the form of vapor, then cooling it into a condensate (sometimes under high pressure in order to aid the separation of salts, this is called Vapor-Compression distillation). Do you think the collector in a distillery is somehow different than one on an atmospheric water reclaimer? Do you think that distillery's collector doesn't collect any of the moisture in the air that was already there? Water condensate reclamation is used heavily in food production--particularly in plants that process high water content foods like tomato paste. That water recycles back into the system without carrying anything "biologically active" back into the food. You've been consuming water condensate for many years. The issue primarily is scale--just like desalinization--and whether to use solid state or two-phase cooling and in what areas. You do not need "hot and humid" air, you simply need to hit the dew point of the air and *ANY* moisture in the air will condense. If you want to collect more water in drier air, you simple increase the surface area of the collector--just like you would with any heat pump. If the collector is made of a safe metal, the water will be perfectly fine--especially if you use copper as it has anti-microbial properties--our residential pipes were copper for this reason for a long time and they never poisoned us, what makes you think the water in the air would be less safe that what's coming out of your local water tower? The startups you may have heard about aren't failing because the idea doesn't work, they're failing because the places they're trying to sell it still get enough fresh water out of a tap that they have no reason to have it--say for instance in California where up to 1,000 liters of water is piped in just so they can have palm trees that don't belong there, despite being in "low water conditions". In many areas of South Africa, water reclamation IS used to collect fresh drinking water because it is cost effective enough to meet the demand more readily than piping the water in from elsewhere--something many areas couldn't afford to build and maintain the infrastructure to do in the first place. And at its most inefficient, if you're using renewable energy, it matters even less how much energy it takes. Not sure why you're so angry at it, but atmospheric reclamation works just fine. Every process will have costs and benefits that apply under different conditions. For instance, let's desalinate water for Arkansas... oh wait... no ocean. And, the cost to transport water inland would be astronomical compared to simply stabbing a pipe in the ground until you find an aquafer--which DOES have biological activity that has to be dealt with--ironically, with brine. But, try that pipe in the ground approach in the Mojave desert in Southern California or Arizona, and you will die of thirst. We need to avoid playing Ford vs. Chevy with methods of saving lives. I'm not sure where you're getting your facts (Google, I suspect), but you're simply wrong about most of what you said. I got my facts from university while pursuing a physics degree. Biologically active just because it's collected on "contaminated fins"... that one will have me shaking my head all day. Someone's been watching WAY too much UA-cam science and getting all Dunning-Kruger about it.
@@blurrydude2885 tell me the energy required to condensate 1 kg of water. tell me the energy required to distill 1 kg of water. this is basic thermodynamics. tell me know what is easier generate: a low entropy state or a high entropy state. your university sounds like a scam.
@@giuseppebonatici7169 The enthalpy of 1 liter of water--which is close enough--at 25 degrees C is ~2.57 MJ--and that's assuming a 100% efficient distillation process. When 1 liter of water condenses, it releases ~2.26 MJ--just as an aside. In order to bring 1 liter of water (assuming 1000 grams of mass) to its dew point of about 15 degrees, you would need ~2.24 MJ of energy. [edited because I did not multiply the mass, the .04 seemed low, lol] (using Q=m*C p*ΔT, which is close enough at this temperature range, also using the Lawrence formula for dew point--again, close enough at these temperatures). Do you have any more questions?
@@giuseppebonatici7169 If you check my numbers and find something different, I will concede, but I've checked those four times now and other than missing one number in my haste that I corrected, I've come up with the same results each time.
There doesn't seem to be much of an issue. The research article said that PTFE (aka. teflon) is the material for the membrane so that's quite cheap, and the best angle for thermohaline circulation is a 30 degree tilt. Seems like all that's left to do is to scale this thing up!
If our water desalination budget was like a 100 billion dollars a year we would easily have global desalination for any nation that required it. We prefer to spend it all on weapons platforms so we can destroy each other fighting over resources instead.
What most people do not understand is that instead of pumping the water at 800 to 900 psi, the main obstacle is overcoming the Osmotic Pressure. This can easily be achieved by putting the intake at approximately 1,800 feet deep in regular seawater. As the water is filtered, the saltier water can be discharged into the ocean and will drop below the filters and will be rehydrated as it moves downhill with no problem to marine life.
The brine can be used for highway construction as long as a thin layer of asphalt is used as a cap. The highway “ trench” could be 8’deep with the good soils being used for better projects. Then asphalt over the brine would act as a lid for cars to drive on and The earth below the brine would filter any water moving deeper downward through the earth. The road would be indestructible by adding sand and very little cement to the brine.
By removing water from salty water you are left with more salty water. There is no way around that. There are only two theoretical solutions to reduce the salinity of the water that goes back: take the salt out or dilute it out - both comes at a price. If this device that does not come with a "hypersalinity problem" then that means it takes just a bit of fresh water out of the sea water and so the salinity change is not as high as in reverse osmosis - meaning it goes the way of dilution. The price comes from the a larger mass of salt water that needs to move through the system, which, at an industrial level means a lot more/bigger pumps and pipes.
This was a very useful video, even though I researched this for almost a year now. My method would be to use extremophyles, some type of microalgae that can live in very salty conditions, but not in freshwater. Since they need salt, they are going to somehow absorb it from the water, making us half water. That paired with distillation and a few energy-generating devices could solve almost all of our problems. Would love to hear your opinions this, Ryan!
I wasn't aware I needed saving from anything. When I need water I open my tap, and the water flows. I've been living 61 years and it's always been that way. Things are fine.
Benjamin Franklin took temperatures of surface water during several trips across the Atlantic in the mid 1700s, initiating the science of these currents shown at 9:53
I don't understand why water from the air, atmospheric water generators, wouldn't be a viable option? I believe the have the humidity and the it could be powered by solar. No dealing with desolation at all because the machine only pulls out pure water vapor from the air.
Very, very, very valuable information, thanks! This invention should be nominated for the Noble Prize, as it eliminates one of the 2 stumble blocks on the way to turning the wildernesses (which are 1/3 of the Earth’s land) into farm land (covered with a greenhouse to reduce evaporation), and thus to solving the world hunger problem, and also to the climate reversal. (The 2nd stumble block is how to cheaply turn sand into fertile soil. The steppes are the remaining 1/3 of the Earth’s land, and to turn them into forests no additional water is needed as well as greenhouses, but just a cheap way of thickening the thin fertile layer.) Green Arabia, Sahara and Australia, plus forests in steppes would definitely revert the climate processes. And of course, the world thirst problem.
The concentrated saline solution is being moved off the membrane and must go somewhere. Your diagram shows the concentration going back into the feed water. The rate may be slower and more diverse, but still, saline is concentrated somewhere; it is not a magic box.
I grew up on an island where our only water supply came from rain collected & stored in big drums. As soon as it started to rain my mum would start washing the clothes and order me and my brothers to take a bath.
As a bonus because they are using the sun, they get extra evaporation du to the photomolecular effect also discovered at MIT. (UPDATE: photomolecular effect might not exist)
We are and keep fighting a battle with the shortage of fresh water we ourselves have created . It is a constant battle and a costly one at that ! Water , especially fresh water needs to be addressed at the source ! We must turn the tide of poor waste management around the world , if not for ourselves but the other life forms that depend on it !
I found the expression "all four hemispheres" confusing. By definition, a sphere has only two hemispheres. Also (not really relevant, but...) Kiribati (formerly the Gilbert Islands) is actually just the local pronunciation of "Gilbert" (named after British sea Captain Thomas Gilbert).
One of many possible next steps is to "mine" the salts which accumulate on membranes for processing into rare earths and other needed elements, thus alleviating at least some of the effects of brine
Sleep is unbelievably important, so make sure yours is the best with Eight Sleep! Use my link www.eightsleep.com/ziroth or code 'Ziroth' for $200 / £200 off!
If you see any other interesting engineering projects that you want me to make a video on, please let me know. This one was really interesting to explore!
copycat of clay filters with hidrophobic leaves and wood. USE BACTERIA MEMBRANES
We pay $5 at the servo for 500ml, have big water offset it
We pay $5 at the servo for 500ml, have big water offset it
We pay $5 at the servo for 500ml, have big water offset it
AEROSPACE ENGNEER here: When I first saw the title of the video I was very sceptical considering some of the ridiculous claims made by other solar powered systems. Thunderf00t has debunked at least 1 of those.
But this looks damn interesting and a genuine breakthrough.
Because I work in industrial control systems and automation AND have worked in mining where they do a lot of water treatment I have worked on both RO and Multi-effect systems although the MES system I encountered was called a Mechanical Vapour Compression system.
One thing people misunderstand with RO is that its NOT that cheap and its often compared to more expensive options. Its biggest advantage is that you can turn it off and on quite easily.
With MES systems they are tricky to get started and you just can't turn them off and back on. One of the effects they use is to keep the system under vacuum because you can get the water to boil at around 70℃. I think the limit is about 67-68℃. One they are running and stable they use very little power because of the thermal exchanges going on. *BUT* those systems have 1 major drawback - they only operate over a very narrow range of flow rates. So you turn them on and cross your fingers they will start as expected.
The best analogy I have is that MES systems are like a 2 stroke motorcycle.
When they are on song in their happy place they are brilliant.
When they are not happy and off song they are horrible.
And if you're wondering why and aerospace engineer is interested in water treatment. Ask what would be one of the first items of critical infrastructure for a moon base.
It’s crazy how desalination is a problem financially, but maintaining wars around the world is perfectly within our budget.
"our"
@@newolde1 You care to elaborate? Or just repeat the word you recognize?
@@CertifiedSkankno, he's right
WE (America + the west in my case) did not cause Russia to invade Ukraine, tell Venezuela to prepare to invade Guyana, or restart tensions between Ethiopia and its neighbors. The wealth and power isn't quite that overconcentrated (yet), not that it would necessarily guarantee a solution if it was because we live mostly in democracies and not ecofascist states (for now).
Tell that to merica
@@Tuhin-i8q America the people ? Or America the government ? It’s important to distinguish.
The hyper-salinity issue isn't down to the method used, but the amount you use it. It's the same amount of salt left over that has to be returned to the ocean. Yes, the trick is to dilute it rather than dump it highly concentrated in one big go, and doing this where there are natural ocean currents to circulate it will give the best results.
Spot on.
NO They should be turning the Brine into Salt Battery Storage Units...
@@Shivaho or we could both
Or dump it into ponds to recover the salt.
why not sell the salt
11:42 if you want to find out how it works. This guy really tried my patience with his preamble.
You're not the only one. Really more like 10:10 where it starts but talks so slow and meanders a bit painful.
@@SpaceDeviant Not to mention his accent 😞
Ha! I didn't make it that far, not even close. Did he start with "Water is essential to all life on earth?" I blocked out the memory. Thanks for the time stamp. I'll start there.
I found his explanations of the problem and current solutions helpful in understanding why this new method is a potential breakthrough. Watched from the beginning to the end! I also rather liked his accent.
Videos like thus don't start addressing their main topic until after the first ten minutes is done for the sole reason of helping their youtube algorithm. Resulting in more monetary pay out for the youtube channel.
I did a Project for my High school science class(which was 30 years ago) and all i used was 2 glass bottles 1 painted Black and the othe clear. I place the black one lower then the clear bottle and placed the clear bottle in the shade and the black bottle im the sun and connected them with a tube. The water in the black bottle was heated and water vapors evaporated and collected in the cooler clear glass bottle. I used nothing more them 2 glass bottles, some black paint, a small piece of tubing, some salt water and the Sun shining above us.
Very cool, well done! 🫡
How much fresh water did you manage to produce in an hour? 🤔
@@johnnybuetiprobably not much, but the idea is still great! imagine it scaled up :)
@@johnnybueti It's better to just collect water from the rain
@@rwyo83 I agree you'll get more from rainwater. However, if this method only produces a couple liters a day, it's still a couple more liters than you would have had otherwise ... which might be really useful if rain isn't falling as much as you'd like.
Did you not watch the whole video? The point is relying on rain can be a disaster when it doesnt fall.
Video starts at 8.55
Thank you 🙌
?
@@DavidRYates-tk2tq title related content
@@DavidRYates-tk2tq !
Thnx
This would be great for off shore sailboats and motor boats which use "water makers" to produce fresh water. These units are reverse osmosis devices but they use a lot of power which is a problem for boats running on solar.
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5 Do you understand just how rude it is to intrude with your preaching? You are far more likely to turn off more people than you are to save any souls with your off-topic bible quotes. Do you actually want to drive people into the arms of the Adversary?
Unless the "gravity feed" part of this can be changed to pump driven, my guess is this wohld not be good for boats, due to their constant motion. Even when at anchor, they rock due to wave motion.
@@2jlee wouldn't a gimbal also solve this issue ?
I'm guessing that the process described in this video requires an immense amount of horizontal space to gather enough energy to make the process work, and a pretty significant amount of vertical space to create significant temperature differences to cause the water to move quickly enough to distill the desired amount of water. I suspect that a thermodynamic conservation of energy is present here that if you compare the usual osmosis driven system to this or any other distillation system, the amount of energy required to run the system and produce clean water is the same but because the osmosis system uses an external source of energy to pressurize, it works faster to produce the same amount of water.
And Riverboat Casinos Too
@Ziroth As a kid I tried making a clear dome with reflective sides that focused sunlight onto a floating hot-plate which was washed by wave action to clear the salt residue. I was soundly discouraged by people that knew what they were talking about. I also thought that with cunning alternating reflective and non-reflective tubing the water vapour could be transported a considerable distance from the coast, then at the journey's zenith, allowed to precipitate and flow to a reservoir. This episode rekindled all that happy philosophising. Thank you.
Those people didn’t know what they were talking about don’t listen to those people anymore if you still are
@@captaincucaracha Um no. They do know what they were talking about as they soundly discouraged him. Bro do you even know what he said? Some people are better off not saying anything. Stop trying to help someone when you yourself need help.
@@Silentjackll I know exactly what he said, but my main issue was these “people” were being discouraging and they don’t know what they are saying which can actually permanently discourage a child at that age, and it can seriously hamper further curiosity as they develop new ideas with age. It’s not to say the science isn’t real but science facts can be used by people with big egos, and wield it to make themselves feel superior while they judge others and perceive them as imbeciles compared to themselves. It’s people very much like yourself, given your reply, that want to force the idea onto others that they should stop trying to help or believe in things when you didn’t even try to understand my intentions or thought process. While I understand your statement and can understand your take away from my comment you should really try and do the same.
@@captaincucaracha This happened to me early on. I was told by teachers, family, friends, etc... that I was nuts. I was told there was no way I would get a job as a software engineer, and there was no way I could do this without a degree. I wrote my first line of code at 8 years old, and instead of being discouraged, I persevered. With no degree, I've already worked at FAANG (the most prestigious set of companies in tech) and hyper-growth startups. Now I run my own company, and we're profitable and hiring. If I listened to almost ANYONE in my close orbit throughout my childhood, I would've never achieved what I already did by 22 years old. I'm older now, but sometimes people don't know what they're discussing. This was all used as fuel to get where I knew I belonged.
I live in Kiribati and I was on Banaba during the drought
And we are are tying to facilitate a small drill rig for simple wells;
Love your article, accurate, too.
The question is : when will it be available ?
Unless the idea is patented or even if it is, the terms may be easy enough (or not) for anyone to create their own system although as the article describes may require some experimentation and adjustment.
I'm wondering though if the complicated design can't be simplified to an enclosed single box with at least one if not more artificial floors within and eliminate the hydrophobic membrane. The result is creating a microcosm of an ocean or any deep body of water in which the water surface is super heated due to its shallowness and evaporates/distills while the depth naturally circulates sending brine to the bottom and bringing up new source water for evaporation.
The current oceans work this way, although there is no artificial floor that separates the surface from below, it's well known that light penetrates the ocean's surface only down to about 30' and the surface environment fish like is only down to about 12', creating these different levels or strata naturally.
Thank you for your well researched, accurate video, and kind reply. I think it is rather complicated to source materials to experiment as every bit comes from overseas. When this broke last year I collected the academic papers. Too.
There are some solar style ones that looks like a solar panel 3.5 x 7.5 feet using a small stream for thin film over black hot backing, under clear 6 mil plastic They produce 18 lts/ day under ideal conditions and though there is a retail price of Aud$750 they can be copied.
We have two large capacity RO units being built by New Zealanders to serve the needs for the 64,000 people of South Tarawa. But they will need lots of Power to run them.
Banaba has a water lens, and based off wells on Nauru we should be able to facilitate the drilling of 3” bore holes with hand or solar pumps. The drill rigs (US$15,000 from China) are the size of a compact car with a little derrick , plus a large air compressor on a trailer.
I think this is good direction if only as a back up as after the drought Aid had provided for some more RO units, but will not last long due to qualified maintenance.
Thank You, I subscribed.
@@tonysu8860
Thank you for your kind words! It's always hard to know the timeline of research to implementation - but with the media attention on this I would hope funding pots would be open to take this to the next level. Potentially a spin-off from the universities will put this into action in the next few years!
Ask ccb envico
@@tonysu8860I would think that absent having a tank that is actually 30+ feet deep so the water physically blocks sunlight from penetrating deeper, you'd need an artificial barrier to attenuate sunlight.
I think MAYBE it could be possible to create a polarized lens that is porous enough for water turnover, but making it porous enough for that might defeat the efficacy of polarization and thus prove insufficient to stop sunlight penetrating.
Modification of an existing technique for harvesting salt from sea water could also provide fresh water using solar energy. With this technique salt is extracted by allowing sea water into ponds, then sealing them off. Over time the water evaporates leaving salt behind.
I envisage having a central pond containing sea water, surrounded by a moat for collecting fresh water, and the whole thing covered with a transparent dome. Energy from the sun evaporates the water in the central pond, which then rises and condenses on the dome, before running down into the moat. Water is extracted from the moat and salt from the pond.
Occasionally the central pond would have to be allowed to dry out completely to allow for salt removal, so more than one setup would be required for continuous production. Due to evaporation rates this method may not provide sufficient water for urban use, but it could be used to gradually turn arid areas into fertile land.
They are too busy trying to figure how to make desalination profitable, not to make it work efficiently. That's why your idea won't work, it's too simple and you can't confuse governments to waste money when they understand how it works.
8 minutes into the video and i still don't have any idea how this MIT technology works
Hear you interestingthough.
Your low attention span is embarrassing, watch the video and you’ll know how it works
it filter the vapor heated by the sun only so the salty water continue to circulate outside
If it sounds confusing or vague it’s by intention. If there was anything in the scheme of value it would be clear as crystal.
since yall are too silly and have been failed by this education system (not your fault) skip to 11:30 for the MIT idea
edit: as @javierititin mentions Ziroth does mention the original work around 11:10 and I failed to pick that up. Original comment left for history as I still feel the focus should have been on the advancements over the years vs just the promises made in 2019/2020:
It's been nearly 4 years since they released that paper. I was hoping for more up to date information than what came out in 2020.
2020 was 4 years ago. wow
because it is crap
Video is garbage. Ryan there (I guess it's Ryan) FAILS to explain that this is a followup to that 2020 paper and that the whole point is in using multiple stages and convection circulation.
Instead, he twaddles for 95% of the video about ancient Romans, water "lenses" sleep SPONSORS and whatnot. Garbage.
Cell link is useful, if you have the time to read it. Mit link isn't - it fails to read and interpret the study properly.
E.g. Amount of water desalinated is said to be 5 liters per square meter per hour - when that's the value for basically 0% of salt in water. At 20% (percentage by weight, 26.3% would be saturation point for NaCl) the amount of fresh water is 1.78 liters per square meter per hour.
Still a lot to achieve without salt accumulation on the membrane but it indicates that folks at mit.edu don't really get the study and don't bother reading through it properly.
@@dennisk648 Probably, but a new video about an old subject should have new information, even if that information is "it's been years and they still can't improve the efficiency or bring down the cost of the device. It hasn't moved anywhere near production."
The problem with desal is energetics. Fresh water will move into areas of higher salt concentration. This is mostly how trees pull water from their roots to their leaves.
The headline of this video is all about MIT's process. But you don't get to this until about 11 minutes into the 15 minute video. Now I think Kiribati is a worthy and interesting subject but so are the thousands of other places that need desalinated water. And do we really need to rehash at length the other methods of desalination on every single video about new desalination innovations? You can't just let people look up the thousands of other videos that explain all that? Very tiresome all in all.
Thank you. Jumped to the time code
It's because the UA-cam at algorithm does not prioritize videos that are below 10 minutes long. So all creators have to pad their videos so they're over 10 minutes long. And they also have to work on getting the maximum minutes watched so they can't just make a 15 minute video with the stuff you want to see at the very beginning because you'll stop watching after the first 4 minutes. It used to not be this way. The UA-cam algorithm used to not prioritize videos that were over 10 minutes. But they put that rule in and suddenly UA-cam is a source of information became a real headache. Now of course with the success of tick tock UA-cam has been forced to be a platform for shorts as well so now you have the opposite case where you have tiny shorts that can get millions of views very quickly.
The stupid shorts are almost worthless.
They always start way back. I'm surprised he didn't start with the big bang.
Frankly, using an example of where and how desalination is done today and then explain what this tech does, save me a bunch of time, which I don't have. That said, if I want to understand more about this entire issue and process, I'll then go digging: your personal mileage will very. It's pretty well done presentation.
We had an experimental desalination project on town land near the shore. It used only solar to evaporate and distill seawater from a shallow black polymer lined ponds. I never did learn the results or prospects from the project. It lasted about four years.
Where was this so people can look it up and learn?
probably wasn't cost effective and was a poor producer. nuke power should be used in conjuction with desal.
Seems like it would be using a lot of land. Heating water in shallow (less than an inch) glass covered black trays works well. Problem in England is that for 6 months the sun is too low and bounces off the horizontal glass/polycarbonate cover. Polythene sheeting is much cheaper and easier to handle than glass, think in India there are groundwater issues in places. Heat the water with a clear polythene cover, and condense it for drinking on stainless steel? Need to keep this cool. All about humidity, relative humidity, temperature and condensation point.
@@plinble Yes, polythene sheet on an incline over basins. Like I said, experimental. There were i think 4 such constructions, about 20' x 40 ' each. Galvanized pipe frames. It was about 30 years ago. No attempt at drinking, just testing the feasibility. Eventually they fell into disrepair. It was in the paper when it began but I recall seeing no follow-up or results. Obviously monitoring for bacteria and salinity would be required if use was intended.
No reason it wouldn't work, but it probably wouldn't produce enough for large scale use, being passive and relying only on sunlight. Perhaps in mid-latitude arid regions it might be practical for small communities.
@@StrangersIteDomum lol...how wrong can you be in one so few words.
Jesus I'm 10 minutes in and you still haven't explained how their system works that's why I clicked on your video I don't need a lecture about rising sea water
THE CC PROPAGANDA IS MANDATORY
😂 10:10
they have to peddle the WEF/CC propaganda no matter what..I EXIT THE VIDEO WHENEVER THEY START
Impatient you are
@@esecallum It's not propaganda tho.
Keep in mind that if freshwater is extracted from salt water in a system that only has an inlet, the salt concentration will increase until the solution can no longer hold the salt at which point it will clog the system unless that saltier solution is taken out via some mechanism like an outlet pipe or other method. One use for an outlet pipe could be a salt production plant but you would need certain amount of land to further evapourate to solid salt and sea ports to allow you to ship it out.
While fresh potable water is relatively rare, saline groundwater is much more common. While not a permanent fix, this technology could allow us to extend the life of our aquifers for another few decades. Also, we could build large saline aqua-ducts/canals - allowing seawater to flow into artificial inland seas that we could then purify for local use.
That's happening already. As low lying aquifers are getting depleted and in tandem, sea levels are rising, saltwater intrusion is becoming quite a problem.
That sounds like problems in the waiting. I can easily see salt water contaminating and wrecking havoc on local ecosystems. Normally it's fine if it isn't being tampered with, but drilling and pumping (which will be done for as long as it's operational) is only one major leak away.
Probably best to be extremely cautious with bringing saltwater inland. The last thing you want is that leaking into the groundwater.
Back in early 80s my idea was something else:
Build big cone higher than 12 meters above the sea surface (make it 15, for example), with the open bottom dipped in the sea.
Conical shape should allow the remaining salt to fall back to the sea, so, the inner surface of the cone might be covered with Teflon.
At the top of the cone vacuum pump would pull the vapor out, and push it through pressurized pipe system down.
The valve at the exit of the pipe would keep the pressure inside and condense the vapor, raising its temperature with the pressure.
The pipe would be spiral, long, and integrated into the cone wall to give the heat back to the water inside the cone.
Building the cone is more expensive, but it completely removes the need for the expensive membranes, which should all together be cheaper in the long run.
Sounds a bit overly complicated, but it is effectively what they are doing here as well. Use solar heating to evaporate the water, collect the evaporate, use seawater to condense evaporate.
Which makes me wonder why no one has done it before.
if you're always dumping the salt and wastes back into the ocean you increase the concentration. if enough places do this long enough it'll make the ocean super concentrated killing most sea life.
Spreading out the waste sea water dumps around the coastline should mitigate that.
Maintaining a low constant outflow rate, the sea water should mix quite quickly I assume.
@@Khanstant Mate, that is what the rivers ARE currently doing and HAVE been doing for hundreds of millions of years.
I haven't run the numbers, but i doubt it is going to be a problem ANY time soon.
fun fact; with the salty water you can build rechargeable Batteries
Great research results! Maybe the same method could be used to avoid clogging in flow batteries, too?
Great thought
@RepentandbelieveinJesusChrist5god doesn’t exist.
@@darrenh669 you're replying to a bot that posts this comment on every video, completely out of context, seen it before
@@darrenh669 If God doesn't exist then why do bananas fit in our hands so perfectly?
@@SillyNolan Same reason your penis fits your hands so perfectly. It's meant to be.
The Ekman Effect also drives both underwater and surface currents which then drive the water and dissipate any hyper salinity in the region. Desalination is a good solution for coastal regions but for inland/landlocked regions we need to harvest rainwater by sequestering it through deep bore wells to recharge the ground water table.
except . . . fracking makes groundwater toxic
@@cleanitup_pls7893yes fracking is the worst type of fuel extraction. It requires at least five times more water and destroys the habitat
I like to picture the desalination plants along the coasts and pipelines running inland to areas of need, including natural/wild areas. Just think, when they leak, all we get is more grass. Sigh. Of course, flooding could be an issue, but I like to also think of shut-off valves and redundant safety systems.
12:25
The question is always, can you scale it up and it still be effective?
Many times things can work fantastic on small scale, while being impractical, insanely high maintenance, very expensive to scale up to provide for a city.
It's like the difference between setting rules for your house and setting rules for a country.
Requiring everyone to clean their room at a certain time and go to bed by a certain time and so on, may be optimum for your home and have you living a near-perfect life, but it can't work for an entire country.
This is the issue many people don't understand when they invent a tiny elegant low power or minimal power, cheap form of solving a problem.
You can get a sheet of plastic and a bucket, a rock, dig a hole, let condensation drip into the bucket or or put a plastic bag around the branch of a tree and collect water.
These are simple, cheap practically free ways to get water, but you can't practically scale this for providing water for a city.
Could you make 100k of these devices and distribute them to 100k households?.. 🤔🤷♂️
I.e. 100k small-scale solutions instead of building 1 big plant?
@@3abxo390 That's actually exactly what happened to electricity production with photovoltaic.
@@3abxo390 I think that's the goal. I don't think they need to scale up this device
@@andrecarvalho9637 It has to be large scale because you need wide area to catch the sunlight. Normal households don't have that. Google: evaporation rate of body of water (for example, how much water evaporate from a pool in a day). It's not much. I assume the system works at 1 atm because it's cheaper to widen the area than to lower the pressure (to increase evaporation rate).
Lots of ideas work in the lab under controlled conditions. Scaling it up for real world usage is the roadblock. Usually cost and or reliability/maintenance prevents it's adoption.
But not always.
did you understand how they remove the salt? this whole thing sounds good to be true. someone explain how they flush salt away without physical maintenance or pumps?
@@cubertmisoI vaguely understand the ideas behind this device. Beyond me to say yes or no.But it will be just an oddity if it is not capable of working in the real world.
Massive red flag that they are quoting prices lower than tap water. The cost of tap water also includes the huge amount of effort that goes into getting it into your house in a safe condition (though I understand in certain parts of America that's not the case - Flint, Michigan for example).
Very easy to just desalinate a litre of water and say "look, that costs less than tap water", but one is sitting in a jug in the lab and the other is flowing out of your tap.
@natmarelnam4871 i mean't how they remove it from the apparatus? for some time sire membrane holes can withstand salt via currents.
The sun tracking requirements are not addressed considering the angle of the water cell is fixed however a sun tracking fresnel lens and mirror could provide a reasonable solution for maintaining the light intensity constant during sun transition .
There is nothing unique about using the sun, could be any heat source and no reason it can't rotate and follow the sun or use lenses.
Why would you bother with the lens if there isn't a temperature minimum and you're bringing in supplemental heat anyways?
Are you aware of the concept of surface area?
@@pupip55 A solar tracking system is almost always more expensive than just buying a second system to double your output.
Unless you manually adjust it to follow the sun, but if you're that desperate for something as basic as water, I don't see you getting your hands on one of these.
@@smolpener7430 Do you have any engineering tips that would help when scaling this model up to a industrial scale?
8:42 For cheaper options, the islanders should use filtered (but still saline) seawater
to bathe and do things with, then rinse briefly with clean water, and keep
the tapwater for drinking purposes or crop watering only.
Bathing with filtered seawater is good for the skin too.
This can reduce the needs from regular water use from 180 liter per person daily need
to as little as 20 liters, even when showering or bathing with the same result.
This would equate 6000 liters for the entire island's needs daily given 300 people.
(besides any crops that is, which can still be watered by rainwater that then needs no filtering.)
6000 liters is a mere 6 m3. That much a single boat could handle.
Well I guess it could be considered, but then you need to run 2 sets of pipes everywhere (fresh and salty) all for a mediocre solution.
A similar happened in Europe where there were two kinds of electricity and it was phased out eventually
In the Galapagos they do this already
@@BIELSIMON If fresh water is a problem, then the solution is either
getting more, or changing the way it is used.
The latter has the most benefit, since it requires a low maintainance
secondary system of pipes, easily implemented on a small scale.
The former is a costly high maintainance water income through desalination.
There are no other solutions, either use less, or gain more, period.
@@AllenKnutson Well, they're smart there then. I'd do the same on a boat.
I think salt makes soap less effective (less foam), but you could rinse off with salt, do a quick rinse with freshwater, lather up with the water off, rinse it off with salt water, then rinse off with fresh water or whatever. I guess the exact details of how to do it, would be determined over time.
However, I get what you mean, anything that can use filtered salt water or filtered salt water with slightly less salt, could be used cheaper for anything that you can get away with using it on, maybe like rinsing out containers or rinsing off dishes before you wash them and so on.
Basically, using the salt water to get some of the initial bulk rinsing done, sort of like rinsing a dirty dish in dirty dish water, where it still comes out dirty, but it's less dirty and stuff is hydrated so it is removed by clean soap and water easier.
That's absolutely mind-blowing. I can't help but love the ingenuity of using a natural phenomenon to clean, cycle and pump the water through the system to both prevent clogging and hypersalinity. An output of 6 litres per hour for an average of 12 hours of sunlight in Kiribati means a potential 72 litres per day. That's an absolute game-changer.
This would only replace the current cost of desalination in those areas that require desalination as the first step in a drinking water treatment process. Unless the membranes in use will also remove other containments (e.g. bacteria, virus, heavy metals, etc...), you will still need to provide some form of treatment to the water to make it potable. Readily accessible sea water from a shallow well could be a good location to source your drinking water, assuming the application is localized to a coastal facility. It would be a less favorable choice to select from a bay or other beach location simply because of the high incidence of bacterial and "trash" polluting the water. I don't see how they arrived at this process being cheaper than U.S. tap water, unless the tap water was sourced from salt water to begin with. At which point you are simply reducing the cost of the desalination process and assuming the rest of the treatment process costs and any distribution costs remain equal.
Probably hyperbole, guys at MIT can't really be that bad at arithmetic. There are places in the US where potable water is simply pumped to the point of use. My farm would be an example. With basic maintenance to the system, we have had a cost of about $1500 for all the water used in the past 60 years. There is an energy cost, but my electric bill runs $6-$7 per month for the entire farm currently, and a bit of that is administrative cost so it is negligible. As for this new device, I suspect you are correct. A biofilm will render it useless in less than a week using raw seawater.
Activated charcoal + sand filters will remove many nasty things including heavy metals
I still feel that system that isolates the salt itself as a product and not just a waste consideration is in our best interest.
Take a little journey in the energy and human costs of the salt industry around the world rabbit hole too. The boutique salt market could easily provide an additonal income to these places.
Every element in the crust is dissolved in seawater and can be distilled out. Instead of looking at brine as a waste, we should look at it as a fluid mineral to be refined. The salt could be used in sodium-ion batteries, or split into pure sodium and chlorine which have industrial uses; even gold and uranium are dissolved in seawater.
Yes but the problem is that in trying to isolate these we create too much salt and not enough water to be practical. The system reduces the negative effects of the waste while generating what is needed. Solid tech.
@@nobody6715 Spot on. People really need to understand the MASSIVE brine waste that comes from reverse osmosis-- we could extract minerals, sure, but there are several problems. First of all, those minerals aren't locked away in stone, but actively playing a role in the ecosystem we are pulling water from. It's not like regular mining. Not only that, but we would need DECADES for the technology that could make use of the new mineral surplus to scale up. It doesn't exist already, and that takes time. Until then, you're just producing waste, and massive amounts of it every day.
The key to this system is that the water can be relatively safely returned to the sea with some clever thinking. It takes advantage of the fact that when supply is limitless, efficiency is less important. Instead of extracting 70% of the fresh water from one gallon of seawater, just extract 10% of the water from 7 gallons in the same time. Concentrating the salt by 10% makes it safe(r) to add back to the ecosystem where it came from, with a little planning.
@@noahj6727 destroying the ocean slowly instead of quickly. Brilliant. It's no wonder young people hate boomers. We make the job of living harder for future generations.
@@y0nd3r It's not going to destroy the ocean dude, the problem with desalination plants is local not global. Humans don't and won't use anywhere near enough water for it to cause any issues globally. Not to mention the water humans use doesn't just vanish, it evaporates and ends up back in the oceans, so any extra salinity would be re-diluted.
Ingenious, but still too expensive. In my country (Greece) tap water costs about 0.5 $ per 1,000 liters in the mainland, so a quarter of the cost of this desalination process. However, on small islands, water costs about 2$ per 1,000 liters too, so in that case it is comparable, but only for small islands. In the case of larger islands, it is more cost effective to build a dam or reservoir and collect rainwater. Still, with a lot of sunlight, like here in Greece, it could be a viable alternative.
you cant compare the tap water prices between USA and Greece.
@@deadbeef576 Especially as there is no one price for water in the US. I've been in small towns near springs where it was $10 a month, unlimited. 0.2/1000 liters if you were watering your lawn. I've been in small cities midwest where its 0.8/1000 liters. And then there are places where they water the desert, and its 5x that. In those places I might be interested in this.
For widespread use in a continental setting, the chief cost of desalination vis a vis other water sources is transporting the water uphill from sea level. Moving large amounts of water is extremely expensive. However, as with energy, we are moving into an economy of scarcity for water. At some future time, energy is likely to become more abundant, as technologies improve, which will mean that the energy cost of transporting desalinated water uphill will become more affordable.
Got a question out of curiosity. Lets say if there is a fund of approximately 1 million USD to solve a nation's water crisis, how would you scale up and apply the desalination model or inspire people to innovate/invest more on this technology?
I hope progress like this continues. Thanks for finding and reporting on this.
This could be a game changer for Australia.The Great Artesian Basin contains about 65 million gigalitres of water, or the equivalent of 130,000 Sydney Harbours! The water is contained within layers of porous rock (aquifers), held in place under pressure by layers of impermeable rock.
The interior where the basin is located is the iconic landscape Australia is known for, kangaroos and red dust. When it does rain the desert blooms, so there is nothing wrong with the soil. Its not sand even if there is a place called the Great Sandy desert. The MIT finding could open up a huge breadbasket. The Artesian basin is replenished by rainfall along the western flank of the Blue Mountains where the capping impermeable rock comes to surface. The water takes a million years at 1m/year to arrive. This does mean a permanent reliable water supply covering more than 1.7 million square kilometres. (Australia is a big place and the basin represents only 22% ) Cloud cover varies between 53% and 93%, it is not scorching hot all the time, and when it rains, it rains. The MIT finding could dramatically change the world's food supply.
I hope this one pans out, because that would be a miracle technology. You could literally just make a raft that floats offshore and pumps freshwater back… I hope that the hydrophobic membrane isn’t too hard to manufacture, I have no idea what goes into that. I know that there are some exciting new micro-fabrication techniques that can make hydrophobic surfaces, but surely it’s not that complicated if it’s claimed to be that cheap.
Hydrophobic membranes are easy.
Spray silicone waterproofer on a coffee filter for one
I'm subscribed, but it is taking you a very long time to get to the point and to describe the MIT process !
This is really a fantastic breakthrough applying modalities in thermodynamics, hydrology, biochemistry and engineering. I’m excited to see if the suitcase desalinators will work for this island nation. I hadn’t heard of this island nation, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for further news. Great show ❤️
Invoking the (badly explained) global thermohaline circulation for this gadget is quite a stretch. Simple convection would be the more appropriate concept.
Awesome people behind these significant improvements in the desalination system. Thank you very much.
Sadly the real video starts at almost 10:30
People will literally find any reason to tear apart someone else's work... Thank you for putting in the time and effort to research, write, record, edit, and present this video--free to the people that would act as though they paid for it, no less. I'm sure I don't need to say it given your sub level, but they haven't created anything worth while, so they have no basis upon which to judge. I appreciated your exposition--even if I knew some of it or the paper is a few years old (looking through the comments) because nothing is new and telling the story of a thing is difficult, often underappreciated work.
Given most places like Kiribait are close to ocean level, the average humidity of the air is high... so I'm surprised they're not looking at atmospheric water capture... No need for brine disposal, direct clean water etc... Might be a good area to read up, @Ziroth
Harvesting water from the atmosphere is a very exciting solution for fresh water. There are several new technologies used to accomplish this and it's going to be a workable solution and it is being commercialized already.
Thanks, I'll check it out!
Jeez, do some research on the physics of things - atmospheric water capture is ridiculously energy inefficient - you would need hundreds of square meters of solar panels to run what is essentially a dehumidifier to produce a pathetic amount of water. Thunderfoot has ample videos debunking this crap - the raw physics doesn't work.
@@bsuddzenthe commercialization is the roadblock. Though the output is low, it is a net positive, with nearly zero energy input after manufacture. Sadly most philanthropy efforts focus on wells and traditional desal. Not sure why. There have been alternative methods for centuries. Plus condensation is nearly free, and both low tech and low energy (used in life rafts for example) . I suspect the real issue for these guano island nations, is overpopulation with regard to natural resources coupled with squandering the systems they have been given previously. Sadly the inability to build in a profit margin for new technology means these new low energy methods will sit to the sideline for years until energy costs rise enough to justify their use or innovation makes the cost to produce even lower.
How many people would like air conditioning on this island?
Why not provide air conditioning, and collect the fresh water from the condenser?
It's a two fer.
Excellent Analysis, Deployed Worldwide Through My Deep Learning AI Research Library… Thank You.
Perfect my future home in the Carribean.
This is an awesome breakthrough. I hope it comes to market and solves this issue for many communities. However, most miracle inventions disappear into the abyss and gets gobbled up by some government to never reach the populations in which it was originally designed.
Can you provide some examples? Most 'miracle inventions' disappear because in the end they don't work. They run into problems scaling up out of a laboratory into the real world.
That's a very conspiratory view. Most "miracle" inventions turn out to not be so great after all. It usually has to do with how expensive manufacturing is, lack of scalability, side issues that only appear when taking a small thing and making it bigger etc.
Like in this video somehow the brine from the big desalination plants is a huge problem (and it usually is) but this new invention doesn't (more accurately it is omitted).
People are basically selfish and stupid. If this reaches the communities it was designed for, you can fully expect them to destroy the ocean environment near the island or shore and eventually make the ocean uninhabitable.
Did you not see in this video where he said people are already putting the solids back into the ocean with the current kind of desalinator? Everything is dead. Humans are like children running with knives. We are gonna kill ourselves.
ok, I am calling b.s. on the suppression by governments or a cabal. We are still struggling to make basic inventions better, cheaper, longer lasting ,scalable, and with lower maintenance costs.
If it's such an amazing invention. You get the book and movie deals and the talk circuit as a reward. Therefore just post the solution and schematics on the internet and as we know once it's there, it's hard to suppress said information. It's been that way since the 1990s and the internet had email, simple text, and then the web.
the video starts at 11:50
Thank you
Thank you for covering this breakthrough. I hope it makes it to the next stage of development and can be scaled up. 👍
This was 4 years ago and a scam.
The slanted design also lets the device catch more sunlight, win win.
It will be interesting to see how a water panel matches up against doing the same thing with raw solar power. There may be a future where specialized panels are mixed and matched to cover a variety of roles.
I have a few theories in mind.
Wouldn't it be efficient to make a desalination plant underwater?
It does not have to be too deep.
Heck, it might as well be a platform with the machine submerged.
Just deep enough for the sea to be constantly above it.
So that the input and flow are constant naturally.
Or at least have a constant pressure if it's deep underwater.
The only problem that I have in mind is that the ocean "might" just become too salty.
But then again, I feel like the only logical way to remove excess waste/chemical is to ship them into space. 😅
4:01 South Tarawa is *not* more densely populated than Tokyo. That would be insane and completely unrealistic.
It _does_ have higher population density than the wider Tokyo metropolitan area, because of course that's the size of a small country and is largely suburban and rural.
A suburban house is a highly populated area compared to Tokyo. It's like 800 times more dense if you live alone.
skip to 8:50 for MIT breakthrough
After 2 minutes in gave up. Seems like old news about TMSS technology. See published paper "Ultrahigh-efficiency desalination via a thermally-localized multistage solar still", Journal: Energy & Environmental Science, Issue 3, 2020.
The MIT News article seems more like a fund raiser than anything substantive.
11:41 If you are interested in how the machine works and not as worried about the history of desalinization.
Great for small communities, also look very promising.
But looks somes way to go for large scale solutions:
- a small water treatment plant produces 10,000 Liters per hour, at a cost of about 0.0001$ per Liter (1000L per 0,10$).
- tap water consumption is commonly 200L+ per day, per person.
The displayed system also seem geographically locked: any short, sudden period of frost would destroy the intricate piping.
(I have a degree in the field, and worked for a few years with a wide range of equipment, but I'm most accustomed to river-to-tap installations)
The issue I see is bio films. Even if you filter the water stuff will get in and grow. The unit will only be hot part if the day and I especially doubt the lower layers are going to sanitize. It will make a nice paper or two but I strongly sense this will fall into the 'who knew it would be so hard' category. Oh and usually there are a room full of people who were willing and able to point out the problems and challenges that are inherent in the 'solution'
🧂
Is there a reason we can't eat or use the salt from desalination in some other way? Why do we HAVE to put the salt from desalination directly back into the ocean?
At 13: 45 you said it runs for 180 hours without any reduction of performance. At 14:52 you said that it would run for several years before needing maintenance. What happens at 180 hours? If you have to do something at 180 hours wouldn't that be called some kind of supervision or maintenance?
I understand that it can run with suboptimal performance after 180 hours, and it would still _function_ at whatever performance for several years. Don't know how the performance degrades over time though
Can someone clarify -
1. Due to the tilt, the salt keeps circulating and due to high density will go back to the sea.
2. The second unit gets salt water both from the first unit and the sea.
Many years ago, I spent three fire seasons on a Forest Service fire lookout with a steep, mile-long trail to a spring, the only water source. I built a solar distiller with a three chambered wooden trough, covered by a tent of clear plastic sheeting. The sun evaporated dirty water in the center trough, it condensed on the inside of the plastic sheet, and trickled into troughs on either side. I recycled dish washing water for additional dish washing, laundry and bathing and reduced four to five trips to the spring per week, to two trips per week.
I'm 50% through the video and you've explained NOTHING about the MIT breakthrough. You've earned a dislike from me, and I don't do that often.
I wonder if they could make a version suitable for use in lifeboats?
No. What if it is cloudy?
Then the survivors wait until it is sunny of course. For info there are already lifeboat solar units that evaporate sea water. Plus they all should have some water supplies, to keep the survivors alive initially. My interest in this is that it is more efficient, so would make better use of the sun when it is visible. If they can make it small and rugged enough for that purpose.@@tzm1843
@@tzm1843 err, yes..? If it's cloudy either wait or resort to other methods. C'mon now.
With how important the angle of this desalinator is for maintaining the currents that keep the filters clear and the saltier water leaving the system, my concern would be that the movement of the boat would disrupt its function. I think they do make inflatable solar stills for lifeboats, though.
@@eyesofthecervino3366 Agreed, and much the same as my thinking, on all points. The team involved seem pretty innovative though. They may find a fix, if they look into it. Perhaps they could even harness wave motion to help the process?
As others have mentioned, what do you do with the brine after the 180 hour cycle?
They should be turning it into Salt Batteries to store the Solar Energy..
I believe this was just the test length they chose, in a real application this would be in the open water where the brine would mix with the open sea, so it could carry on operating much much longer! Thanks for the comment :D
Great news. Scaled up, this could put a dent in fears here in the American West of drought, wildfires, and urban sprawl. Thank you MIT and Shanghai Universities! Now I want to find out how soon these will be available for home use and municipal use; as well as the name of the spin-off companies in which one can invest. Thanks Ziroth.
Great way to fight ocean rising. Desalinate salt water. Use the sodium for energy storage and the deionized water as hydrogen fuel cell energy source.
what about the brine problem though? salt isn't being removed from the system so even if you add more sea water to flush it through, it still accumulates and could crystalise and clog the system..
this makes me think only thermal distillation is the best way to go environmentally so we can easily remove salt from a pot after and no sea life has to drown.
No more salt in the ocean than there was before.
They should be turning it into Salt Batteries
Save us from what exactly?
Picture too cute.
Best comment ❤
Hyper salinity of the islands’ drinking water, largely due to rising seawater and storm surge.
Water crisis: accordimg to this video, half of the world's population is experiencing extreme water scarcity.
This young man is doing research he is helping us to understand things we need to get clear.. I appreciate him.. even if he doesn't always give us ALL the information we would like,. We can do research also. That's all I have to say.
I like how the solution to salt accumulating on the lower membrane was to tip it a lil.
Thank you Ziroth, this is so much better than other tech channels because you address questions that get air brushed, such as what exactly happens to the salt in reverse osmosis. Your insight on Kiribati was phenomenal! Brilliant! The best tech post I've watched.
Incidentally, you're the only UA-camr who can explain why the new Toyota water engine doesn't break the first law of thermodynamics? Can you please explain water engines as brilliantly as you have just explained desalination?
From maldives here ...
while yes most of the cities and resorts get water by desalination
All or most the islands don't have it yet.
they are a work in progress
we have been getting water from rain to drink and from wells for other uses.
The development of desalination plants is slow amongst islands due to the cheap cost and reliability of utilizing our own land for the water we get from wells and water we collect from rain. Its not the same for cities due to the dense populations and higher demand ,
and for resorts its easier for them to use desalination plants as they make enough profit to cover the costs
Jesus!
Explanation starts at 10 minutes in!
Why do so many people on UA-cam turn a 1 minute video into an hour?
From the video, here is what I understand.
Pros:
The machine is passive
The machine doesn’t allow salt accumulation easily
The machine does not create hyper saline water at a fast rate
The machine is solar powered
The machine is small
Cons:
The machine is solar powered (though this can be solved by having an alternative heating method)
The machine is small (can be scaled up if need be, not that big of a problem)
The membranes are in a difficult to maintain spot, requiring the entire machine to be pulled out of the housing. (Better maintenance options are to be expected)
The machine doesn’t have a solution for heavy metals (sea water may contain heavy metals, not exactly healthy nor easy to remove)
Overall, this is an ingenious device that barely costs anything to run! Further innovation should make the mechanics easier to maintain, function, and replace! I have high hopes for this tech!
There are other methods to obtain fresh water. With a power source, (including solar) you can use atmospheric water generators, which extract moisture directly from the air, without mucking about with the salt water.
it's cheaper to pass saline water through RO system than using a Dehumidifier, like 100 times cheaper, and RO systems are expensive. a dehumidifier will always be equal of less cost efficient than distillation (same energy required, but heat pumps could increase the overall efficiency of distilling over condensing).
they have been trying to make startups of glorified dehumidifiers for decades and all have gone under because:
water is not drinkable (the contamination in the fins make it biologically active)
the results are pathetic against initial claim (like thousands time lower, as physically expected), and inconsistent as you need really hot and humid air to get "good performance"
the cost per liter of water is so high that it starts to be reasonable to move fresh water in container through the ocean.
This is incorrect.
Atmospheric water reclamation is both cheaper and more effective than desalinization in many areas of the world (I use reclamation because they don't "generate" anything and that term has always bothered me for this reason). And, distillation isn't even the most efficient form of desalinization, in fact, it's the least desirable due to the energy required to heat the water. Also, distillation IS air water reclamation but with the added step of putting the water into the air in the form of vapor, then cooling it into a condensate (sometimes under high pressure in order to aid the separation of salts, this is called Vapor-Compression distillation). Do you think the collector in a distillery is somehow different than one on an atmospheric water reclaimer? Do you think that distillery's collector doesn't collect any of the moisture in the air that was already there?
Water condensate reclamation is used heavily in food production--particularly in plants that process high water content foods like tomato paste. That water recycles back into the system without carrying anything "biologically active" back into the food. You've been consuming water condensate for many years. The issue primarily is scale--just like desalinization--and whether to use solid state or two-phase cooling and in what areas.
You do not need "hot and humid" air, you simply need to hit the dew point of the air and *ANY* moisture in the air will condense. If you want to collect more water in drier air, you simple increase the surface area of the collector--just like you would with any heat pump. If the collector is made of a safe metal, the water will be perfectly fine--especially if you use copper as it has anti-microbial properties--our residential pipes were copper for this reason for a long time and they never poisoned us, what makes you think the water in the air would be less safe that what's coming out of your local water tower?
The startups you may have heard about aren't failing because the idea doesn't work, they're failing because the places they're trying to sell it still get enough fresh water out of a tap that they have no reason to have it--say for instance in California where up to 1,000 liters of water is piped in just so they can have palm trees that don't belong there, despite being in "low water conditions".
In many areas of South Africa, water reclamation IS used to collect fresh drinking water because it is cost effective enough to meet the demand more readily than piping the water in from elsewhere--something many areas couldn't afford to build and maintain the infrastructure to do in the first place. And at its most inefficient, if you're using renewable energy, it matters even less how much energy it takes.
Not sure why you're so angry at it, but atmospheric reclamation works just fine. Every process will have costs and benefits that apply under different conditions. For instance, let's desalinate water for Arkansas... oh wait... no ocean. And, the cost to transport water inland would be astronomical compared to simply stabbing a pipe in the ground until you find an aquafer--which DOES have biological activity that has to be dealt with--ironically, with brine. But, try that pipe in the ground approach in the Mojave desert in Southern California or Arizona, and you will die of thirst. We need to avoid playing Ford vs. Chevy with methods of saving lives.
I'm not sure where you're getting your facts (Google, I suspect), but you're simply wrong about most of what you said. I got my facts from university while pursuing a physics degree. Biologically active just because it's collected on "contaminated fins"... that one will have me shaking my head all day. Someone's been watching WAY too much UA-cam science and getting all Dunning-Kruger about it.
@@blurrydude2885 tell me the energy required to condensate 1 kg of water. tell me the energy required to distill 1 kg of water. this is basic thermodynamics. tell me know what is easier generate: a low entropy state or a high entropy state.
your university sounds like a scam.
@@giuseppebonatici7169 The enthalpy of 1 liter of water--which is close enough--at 25 degrees C is ~2.57 MJ--and that's assuming a 100% efficient distillation process. When 1 liter of water condenses, it releases ~2.26 MJ--just as an aside. In order to bring 1 liter of water (assuming 1000 grams of mass) to its dew point of about 15 degrees, you would need ~2.24 MJ of energy. [edited because I did not multiply the mass, the .04 seemed low, lol] (using Q=m*C
p*ΔT, which is close enough at this temperature range, also using the Lawrence formula for dew point--again, close enough at these temperatures). Do you have any more questions?
@@giuseppebonatici7169 If you check my numbers and find something different, I will concede, but I've checked those four times now and other than missing one number in my haste that I corrected, I've come up with the same results each time.
they should use the hypersaline waste to refill the dead sea without diluting it
I subscribed the instant I heard you pronounce Kiribati correctly. Shows you care about getting things right.
There doesn't seem to be much of an issue. The research article said that PTFE (aka. teflon) is the material for the membrane so that's quite cheap, and the best angle for thermohaline circulation is a 30 degree tilt. Seems like all that's left to do is to scale this thing up!
If our water desalination budget was like a 100 billion dollars a year we would easily have global desalination for any nation that required it. We prefer to spend it all on weapons platforms so we can destroy each other fighting over resources instead.
According to national governments, human resources means exactly that.
There is a Polish company Nanoseen already having nano membranes that make fresh water out of sea water no problem.
skip to 10:00 to get to the point faster...
Lithium batteries add gel and they recharge forever. Test it out please! Endless recharges!
What most people do not understand is that instead of pumping the water at 800 to 900 psi, the main obstacle is overcoming the Osmotic Pressure. This can easily be achieved by putting the intake at approximately 1,800 feet deep in regular seawater. As the water is filtered, the saltier water can be discharged into the ocean and will drop below the filters and will be rehydrated as it moves downhill with no problem to marine life.
It's a nice start. I hope this can be refined and work in the real world scenarios since we have so much polluted water now.
The brine can be used for highway construction as long as a thin layer of asphalt is used as a cap. The highway “ trench” could be 8’deep with the good soils being used for better projects. Then asphalt over the brine would act as a lid for cars to drive on and The earth below the brine would filter any water moving deeper downward through the earth. The road would be indestructible by adding sand and very little cement to the brine.
Hi. Is the solution you are describing an alternate one for desalination of sea water?
May their efforts prosper beyond their wildest hopes & dreams 🙌
By removing water from salty water you are left with more salty water. There is no way around that. There are only two theoretical solutions to reduce the salinity of the water that goes back: take the salt out or dilute it out - both comes at a price. If this device that does not come with a "hypersalinity problem" then that means it takes just a bit of fresh water out of the sea water and so the salinity change is not as high as in reverse osmosis - meaning it goes the way of dilution. The price comes from the a larger mass of salt water that needs to move through the system, which, at an industrial level means a lot more/bigger pumps and pipes.
This was a very useful video, even though I researched this for almost a year now. My method would be to use extremophyles, some type of microalgae that can live in very salty conditions, but not in freshwater. Since they need salt, they are going to somehow absorb it from the water, making us half water. That paired with distillation and a few energy-generating devices could solve almost all of our problems. Would love to hear your opinions this, Ryan!
I wasn't aware I needed saving from anything. When I need water I open my tap, and the water flows. I've been living 61 years and it's always been that way. Things are fine.
god damn that gotta be the first piece of good news I ever heard since covid.............. finally a glimmer of hope. we need more
Benjamin Franklin took temperatures of surface water during several trips across the Atlantic in the mid 1700s, initiating the science of these currents shown at 9:53
I don't understand why water from the air, atmospheric water generators, wouldn't be a viable option? I believe the have the humidity and the it could be powered by solar. No dealing with desolation at all because the machine only pulls out pure water vapor from the air.
The desolation of Smaug? Or no desalination with fog?
Very, very, very valuable information, thanks!
This invention should be nominated for the Noble Prize, as it eliminates one of the 2 stumble blocks on the way to turning the wildernesses (which are 1/3 of the Earth’s land) into farm land (covered with a greenhouse to reduce evaporation), and thus to solving the world hunger problem, and also to the climate reversal. (The 2nd stumble block is how to cheaply turn sand into fertile soil. The steppes are the remaining 1/3 of the Earth’s land, and to turn them into forests no additional water is needed as well as greenhouses, but just a cheap way of thickening the thin fertile layer.)
Green Arabia, Sahara and Australia, plus forests in steppes would definitely revert the climate processes.
And of course, the world thirst problem.
We're back and this project looks like a pipe dream!
The concentrated saline solution is being moved off the membrane and must go somewhere. Your diagram shows the concentration going back into the feed water. The rate may be slower and more diverse, but still, saline is concentrated somewhere; it is not a magic box.
Thank you, If there was a DIY tutorial of this the impact would be so positive that could not be calculated
11:41 - 'There's a lot going on here, but I've tried my best to distill some of the core concepts.' I see what you did there.
Amazing! Thank you for covering this
I grew up on an island where our only water supply came from rain collected & stored in big drums. As soon as it started to rain my mum would start washing the clothes and order me and my brothers to take a bath.
As a bonus because they are using the sun, they get extra evaporation du to the photomolecular effect also discovered at MIT. (UPDATE: photomolecular effect might not exist)
We are and keep fighting a battle with the shortage of fresh water we ourselves have created .
It is a constant battle and a costly one at that !
Water , especially fresh water needs to be addressed at the source !
We must turn the tide of poor waste management around the world , if not for ourselves but the other life forms that depend on it !
This video can solve all the water problems because of how much water it contains. You need to watch half the video for it to even get to the point
Oh wow, no any numbers again like all other breakthroughs of water desalinations? Sound legit!
I found the expression "all four hemispheres" confusing. By definition, a sphere has only two hemispheres. Also (not really relevant, but...) Kiribati (formerly the Gilbert Islands) is actually just the local pronunciation of "Gilbert" (named after British sea Captain Thomas Gilbert).
One of many possible next steps is to "mine" the salts which accumulate on membranes for processing into rare earths and other needed elements, thus alleviating at least some of the effects of brine