Salinity

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

Science

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

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

Diagram of the experimental device that sees the osmotic transport of water through a transmembrane boron nitride nanotube (Image: Laurent Joly (ILM))

Environment

Nanotubes boost potential of salinity power as a renewable energy source

Researchers have created an experimental device that indicates boron nitride nanotubes provide an extremely efficient solution for converting the energy of salinity gradients into immediately usable electrical power.

Graduate student Alex Bartman works with the M3 water filtration and desalination system (Photo: UCLA Newsroom)

Environment

The M3 mobile water desalination system cuts the cost of producing clean water

The mini-mobile-modular (M3) “smart” water desalination and filtration system could help determine the feasibility of using available water as a source for a large-scale desalination plant.

Where the river meets the sea - salt and freshwater could be used like a giant battery (Image of Amazon Estuary via NASA)

Environment

Salinity power as renewable energy

Green energy comes in many guises these days, from wind-power to wave-power. One of the more compelling of the new kids on the eco-energy block is salinity power, which uses the concurrence of salt-water and freshwater in estuaries and marries it with the natural, effortless process of osmosis.