Millions of people around the world lack access to safe drinking water. But finding a reliable way to create clean drinking water is often too expensive.
But now, researchers at Alexandria University in Egypt have successfully devised a cost-effective desalinization technology to solve this problem. They have been able to filter highly salty water through their desalinization technique in minutes.
Though desalinization is considered one of the costlier methods to filter seawater into clean water, the researchers were able to develop a cost-effective and portable desalinization technology by combining their expertise in chemical engineering, agricultural and bio-systems engineering, and oceanography.
They used special membranes containing a cheap ingredient – cellulose acetate powder – which is produced in Egypt. This powder works along with other components to suck the salt particles from the dirty water and allow the clean water to pass through.
The second phase of the process involves heating the desalinated water until it vaporizes. The water vapors are then condensed to remove impurities, and clean water is extracted. This technique could be very useful for desalinating seawater.
This technique offers a significant cost reduction from existing energy-sucking desalinization techniques like reverse osmosis.
