Desalination plants powered by electricity are already widely used in countries with limited freshwater resources, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. A study this month in the journal Desalination, for instance, notes that “Desalination technologies are a classic example of the interlink between energy, water, and the environment. By integrating renewable energy with desalination, it is possible to mitigate the environmental impacts of energy consumption.”
Most desalination technologies today, however, require considerable investments to set up as well as reliable sources of power, says Xiangyu Li, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT. And neither, Li says, are typically found in abundance in regions of developing countries where clean water shortages are most acute.
“This could be a disruptive technology towards practical solar desalination. Its overall cost is extremely low, and scalability of this technology will not be a problem.”
—Swee Ching Tan, National University of Singapore
This nexus of needs and technological potential has prompted many researchers (including the authors of the new Desalination paper, above) to look at ways to purify or desalinate water with little more than sunlight. These approaches use the heat of the sun to evaporate water, which then condenses on a collection surface. As the water is vaporized it leaves behind any contaminants, providing a source of clean drinking water.
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