Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Cheaper

Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Cheaper

www.gizmodo.com.au

Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets. In response, many countries have turned to the sea for potable fluids but existing reverse osmosis plants rely on complicated processes that are expensive and energy-intensive to operate.

Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalination energy costs by 99 percent.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This can only be good news - both for people and for Lockheed-Martin shareholders!!

Drinking water resources are facingt increasing pressure all over the world - there are often suggestions that wars will start being fought over it in the near future, or arguably already have been.

In paticularly dry areas such as the Arabian peninsular desalination plants use an enourmous amount of energy (= oil) and are highly sensitive strategic infrastructure...= prime terrorist targets.

And whether you think global warming is human caused or not, it does seem to be happening so changing climate patterns aer probably going to mean large parts of the earth will have changes to tehir water supplies- and some of those changes are going to mean less fresh water.

www.gizmodo.com.au
(visit the link for the full news article)

The Gaul is getting a star and flag from me, this is a SURE SIGN that 2012...errr 2013 is happening !!

Nice post , and this must be investigated further.

Hopefully this same tech can clean the oceans of filth as well.

And make it cheaper to rid the Fluoride from our water.

Neat stuff that graphine film, bet it's gonna cost a fortune!
I think I would have looked into solar powered distilling.

Originally posted by g146541
Neat stuff that graphine film, bet it's gonna cost a fortune!
I think I would have looked into solar powered distilling.

No kidding. Earth pretty much shows us how to do it every time it rains at the coast.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


It is good news, however it is not yet an applicable technology.

The article says that there is still problems to be solved and no time frame is given so it looks like the cost reduction of desalination is still some time off.

This could change a lot of cultures. I wonder if they could take care of the tearing problem by using a very large surface area but with limited flow and a deep settling pool beneath it.

reply to post by HopSkipJump


I imagine limiting the flow would be a pretty easy starting point, along with having some sort of backing grid that provides actual strength? Or maybe simply using a sandwhich sheets - eg according to the article 50 sheets would still be 10% of the thickness of current systems - not quite as cheap in terms of energy savings, but a great improvement.

The cost of the material is likely to be minor compared to the amount of energy saved over a commercial lifetime for this - hence the lower cost of actually producing fresh water.

As the last para of the article says:

......there are no announced plans on when they’d hit the market. Tomorrow isn’t soon enough.

Edit: LM's press release notes that a patent has been awarded, and that the material can be customised to filter different materials by making different sized holes in the graphene sheet

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


I wonder if sandwiching the sheets between traditional filters would help strengthen it as well as keep the larger particles from getting to the sheets and prevent damage from them

even hexogonal carbon filters would help and the honeycomb design would add a great deal of strength

Originally posted by g146541
Neat stuff that graphine film, bet it's gonna cost a fortune!
I think I would have looked into solar powered distilling.

It gets cheaper to manufacture every day, I see researchers coming out with new ways to mass produce it all the time. I assume Lockheed has figured out a scalable manufacturing process from the sounds of the above article.

Cheap Graphene Production

And another

And of course the DVD Burner method

So wait . . . along with creating super-capacitors that could finally allow the creation of practical electrical vehicles (along with making all batteries obsolete), this stuff can also provide clean drinking water? Star Trek writers couldn't even come up with such an amazing compound, wowsas!

Originally posted by captainpudding
So wait . . . along with creating super-capacitors that could finally allow the creation of practical electrical vehicles (along with making all batteries obsolete), this stuff can also provide clean drinking water? Star Trek writers couldn't even come up with such an amazing compound, wowsas!

Great stuff indeed!
However, I'll wait to make your comment until after we have transporters and food replicators.
A food replicator would be the most important invention EVER, no more hunger nor a need for anyone to work!
The worlds financial institutions would be put out on their collective....ummm...ears.
But graphine is cool for now.
I would also consider a holodeck.

reply to post by HopSkipJump


I had the same idea as you while reading the article.

I'm sure there are issues with attaching it firmly to a hub or something, as their engineers are far more brilliant than us. It would be great if it were stacked in a reusable tube. A safe one like some vacuum cleaners use, but for water. If they can work out the bugs for industrial use, this could change the world. If scale is an issue, then home use should be considered as a marketable alternative.

The end of the rising sea problem (or so they say...rising seas as opposed to erosion I mean)

Originally posted by g146541
Neat stuff that graphine film, bet it's gonna cost a fortune!
I think I would have looked into solar powered distilling.

Exactly, the OP should have said "99 Percent Easier". Which was Gizmodos headline, and not without a cause.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


That's all and good until some big company like Lockheed Martin buys up the patents and suppresses them so people around the world can't have cheap clean water, just like they did with all those UFOs they reverse engineered back in the....

Wait what?

Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalination energy costs by 99 percent.

Oh... Well then big oil is gonna just steal the tech... and...

I mean, the NWO, they aren't gonna let...

...Uhhh

Okay I give up being irrational. I'm not good at it.

Kinda wish I owned lockheed shares though.

I might remind people that the most profitable commodities in the world are the ones that cost nothing to produce. I know, I know... Kinda kills the whole "Free Energy is real and being suppressed!" mumbo jumbo... But it's the way the world works.

S&F

This is cool. I have always wondered why no one has figured out a way to desalinate ocean water that was easy and cheap. I wonder why they do not just use evaporation and condensation on a large scale? Probably would not produce enough potable water, or I suppose it would have been done already. I mean if you only had to use the power of the sun, it seems like a good deal. Maybe there is a setup people can use at home to produce their own potable water in this way. I know anyone could go outside with some clear plastic and do it, but I mean on a larger scale. This would come in handy in a survival situation, if one had all the necessary materials with them already, and could take them wherever they went.

i would feel a lot better if this was developed by anyone other then a company that deals with war and death like LM

its like a maker of chemical weapons suddenly started producing seeds and pesticides...oh, wait....

Are they going to filter out the radiation too?

They better get started on that.