The 'Water Chip' Separates Salt From Water Using Electric Field

Say hello to 'Water Chip' that takes an entirely different approach to desalination. The chip has been developed by chemists at the University Of Texas at Austin and University of Marburg in Germany as a new methord for the desalination of seawater. It uses lesser energy and is 'dramatically simpler' than the conventional techniques. The team working on the project says that the energy requirements of this chip are so low that it can run on a battery bought from a store.

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The chip allows elimination of a membrane to separate salt and water - a method currently used for desalination of seawater. The new technique is called "electrochemically mediated seawater desalination' is patent pending and is under commercial development by a startup called Okeanos Technologies. The membrane-free technology developed by the team still needs refinement in order to make it scalable; but once that hurdle is crossed the chip can be deployed on a massive scale and even on portable desalination systems.

deslinationchip

The plastic chip contains a micro-channel with two branches. At the branch-out point, an embedded electrode neutralizes the chloride ions in seawater to create an 'Ion depletion zone". this zone increases the local electric field than the remaining of the channel. The change in electric field is sufficient to redirect the salts in water into one branch and the desalinated water into the other. The chip requires a small voltage of about 3.0 volts to carry out the operation. The team has succeeded in achieving about 25% desalination using this technique and is confident that they'll cross the 99% desalination barrier in coming days.

We've a video that shows the chip in action. Check it out below -

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#​

Replies

  • Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran
    Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran
    Engineering Marvels make me to think about the limits to which a human can go.......
    Do you know what volume of water an single chip can desalinate?
    Is this innovation going to be our future?
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    No idea about what volume it a single chip chan desalinate. I think it'd be in milliliters; but think about these chips deployed in millions in the form of an array. That'd allow several kiloliters of water to be desalinated in one go. Plus the energy requirements would not be very large; as compared to the problem it'll eventually solve.

    What needs to be improved is the efficiency of the chip from 25% to 99%+. That'd be a real breakthrough in this technology.
  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ
    CSK AUTO
    .
    Do you know what volume of water an single chip can desalinate?
    Is this innovation going to be our future?
    From link:
    Right now the microchannels, about the size of a human hair, produce about 40 nanoliters of desalted water per minute.
  • lovebox
    lovebox
    Good to see such development. A cost-efficient substitute for the present day desalination systems. And the power requirement being so low, an array of such chips can be surely connected to an array of solar cells making for an efficient system.
  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ
    lovebox
    Good to see such development. A cost-efficient substitute for the present day desalination systems. And the power requirement being so low, an array of such chips can be surely connected to an array of solar cells making for an efficient system.
    True! A lot of potential there
  • Gurkirat Singh
    Gurkirat Singh
    this is a breakthrough technology...no doubt a lot needs to be improved..
    and i think it's size needs to be enlarged for it to be able to use on large scale..i mean one chip must desalinate water in some liters..
  • Anoop Mathew
    Anoop Mathew
    Looks promising with use of solar cells as #-Link-Snipped-# said. Would love to know if tweaking this technique a little could actually be used to anti-pollute the river and well water as well. This could lead to availability of much cleaner drinking water at local areas at rather cheaper rates.
  • Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran
    Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran
    +1 for anoop .If this Filtering Technology gets evolved ,it can also be used as a Filter in automobile world .
  • lovebox
    lovebox
    anoopthefriend
    Looks promising with use of solar cells as #-Link-Snipped-# said. Would love to know if tweaking this technique a little could actually be used to anti-pollute the river and well water as well. This could lead to availability of much cleaner drinking water at local areas at rather cheaper rates.
    Yes indeed. Sooner rather than later, this could even provide a portable water purifier that we could carry around in our pockets. Non availability of clean drinking water has been cited as the reason for increased instances of disease outbreaks in developing countries by the World Health Organisation. This technology could be very effective in curbing the problem.
    But a lot still needs to be done as at present it can only remove salts. The organic pollutants also have to be dealt with. Let's think in that direction too. Our friends from the Chemical Engg and Biomedical Engg can provide valuable insight in to this matter.

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