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.
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.
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 -
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.
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-#
0
