Solar-Powered Pipe Designed To Desalinate 1.5 Billion Gallons Of Drinking Water For California
As California faces water scarcity in the coming years, the amount of energy needed to produce water will surely increase. Luckily, designs like ‘The Pipe’ may be able to solve California’s severe water shortage problems.
Submitted to LAGI (Land Art Generator Initiative) – a design competition for the city of Santa Monica, The Pipe was designed by the Canadian engineering firm Abdolaziz Khalili and Associates. Not only is The Pipe a wonderful piece of art, but it also “represents a change in the future of water”. According to Khalili Engineers, The Pipe could annually generate 10,000 MWh and desalinate 1.5 billion gallons of drinking water.
“What results are two products: pure drinkable water that is directed into the city’s primary water piping grid, and clear water with twelve percent salinity. The drinking water is piped to shore, while the salt water supplies the thermal baths before it is redirected back to the ocean,” the design reads.
More info: landartgenerator.org (h/t: inhabitat)
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Looks interesting, but information about the producibility of this concept seems to be quite scarce. Moreover, while a single such tube looks nice, the realistically needed number of them might be not so nice anymore. Nonetheless, while desalination should be a last resort, desalination from renewable sources definitely needs more research into future technology!
never heard about the use of magnetic fields to de-salinate water. I'm not sure it's a serious project...
I'm afraid it's again a "concept design" going on internet and everyone believing it's a super new invention...so many of them just written on paper without any proof of work. That's the world innovation nowadays?
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A company I read about has developed a nano-fabric that removes salt that uses one one-hundredth the power as what is currently used. If the information is still good, the company should be well into in the mass-production development and testing phase. The future may be very good for desalinating water.
It's a porous Teflon membrane and it is used in emergency water devices sold in some marine stores. You fill it with sea water, pump it up to 90psi and it dribbles out drinkable water. The water can pass through but not the salt. It's not practical on a large scale but they're working on it. It's not that new, we've made it where I work for 10 years. The cap in your bleach bottle also has a Teflon membrane that lets air pass and not the liquid. Bleach expands a lot when heated and if you take it from a 70 degree store to the 160 trunk of a car the bottle would burst. Ask Granny. She can tell you about Clorox going from brown glass to plastic.
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If this works, it will most likely be only a stopgap. The real future of desalination will be when graphene production becomes cheap enough to make in large quantities: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/things-you-can-make-graphene-drug-detectors-transistors-and-tasty-drinkable-seawater
It looks lovely :) it's great to see some of the awesome ideas people are designing
Looks interesting, but information about the producibility of this concept seems to be quite scarce. Moreover, while a single such tube looks nice, the realistically needed number of them might be not so nice anymore. Nonetheless, while desalination should be a last resort, desalination from renewable sources definitely needs more research into future technology!
never heard about the use of magnetic fields to de-salinate water. I'm not sure it's a serious project...
I'm afraid it's again a "concept design" going on internet and everyone believing it's a super new invention...so many of them just written on paper without any proof of work. That's the world innovation nowadays?
Load More Replies... A company I read about has developed a nano-fabric that removes salt that uses one one-hundredth the power as what is currently used. If the information is still good, the company should be well into in the mass-production development and testing phase. The future may be very good for desalinating water.
It's a porous Teflon membrane and it is used in emergency water devices sold in some marine stores. You fill it with sea water, pump it up to 90psi and it dribbles out drinkable water. The water can pass through but not the salt. It's not practical on a large scale but they're working on it. It's not that new, we've made it where I work for 10 years. The cap in your bleach bottle also has a Teflon membrane that lets air pass and not the liquid. Bleach expands a lot when heated and if you take it from a 70 degree store to the 160 trunk of a car the bottle would burst. Ask Granny. She can tell you about Clorox going from brown glass to plastic.
Load More Replies... If this works, it will most likely be only a stopgap. The real future of desalination will be when graphene production becomes cheap enough to make in large quantities: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-07/things-you-can-make-graphene-drug-detectors-transistors-and-tasty-drinkable-seawater
It looks lovely :) it's great to see some of the awesome ideas people are designing
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