New Nano Desalinization Method 216
lbmouse writes "The Technology Review is reporting that researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have announced a way to use carbon nano-tube technology to reduce the cost of desalination of ocean water by 75 percent over current methods of reverse osmosis. From the article: 'The technology could potentially provide a solution to water shortages both in the United States, where populations are expected to soar in areas with few freshwater sources, and worldwide, where a lack of clean water is a major cause of disease.' The technology may also lead to new ways of eliminating carbon dioxide emitted from power plants."
Perfect (Score:5, Funny)
Woo-Hoo!
Re:Perfect (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perfect (Score:3, Funny)
Then pee into your freezer, and the cycle is complete!
Re:Perfect (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Perfect (Score:2)
Wow, 75% cheaper (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow, 75% cheaper (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wow, 75% cheaper (Score:3, Informative)
So far what they have is a workable, small scale (no pun intended), test solution to the problem of water filtration. But there is little novel, or unobvious, in what they have done.
If there is a patent in this it will be in the process used to create commercial quantities of nanotube filters.
There are of course usually several ways of skinning your animal of choice, so in fact it is probable that there will be several patents sought for nanotube manufacturing processes -
And why shouldn't they patent? (Score:2)
Just think of the patent licensing fees they can charge!
Why shouldn't they be able to patent? This is a novel and useful technology reduced to practice for the first time, and is exactly the kind of thing that patents were designed to cover.
Don't want to pay royalties? Fine, go back to the previous (and more expensive) method of desalination. If the new method has value, you should expect to compensate the inventors over the lifetime of the patent. After that, it's all yours.
stop watering your lawn (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2)
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:3, Insightful)
Hate to break it to you bud, but it's all the same water in the end. There was a paper company that opened up east of here, and on the day that they commenced operations private wells for 50 miles around dried up, and who got hurt? People who had seen no reason to care because their water was totally different from
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2)
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2)
How do you know?
Most watersheds are hundreds feets down, and most areas share the same water system. Even if it is not your watershed, it may flow to another watershed down hill from you. Anyway you look at it, using valuable resource like water to keep non-essential items like grass green, is huge waste of resource.
Where does the lawn water go? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am hard pressed that anyone living where there is normal rainfall for growing grass (i.e. Georgia) and has a water table high enough to tap with a private well isn't simply recycling the water by pumping it from below and discharging it on the surface. In fact, ground-source heat pumps are the next big thing in saving energy resources -- some of the systems are closed loop with a coil to pipe in the ground, other systems are open loop, lifting water from a well and discharging it on the surface. The various state DNR's that issue permits for such open loop systems want you to discharge on the surface -- they certainly don't want you pumping water that you have handled directly back into the aquifer without being filtered through the ground.
I agree that lawn watering is a serious use of resources in the desert Southwest U.S. You can be Fremen in your view of lawns on Arrakis, but to argue the same point on Caladan is stretching matters a bit far.
Re:Where does the lawn water go? (Score:5, Informative)
Georgia, btw, happens to be where I live. One of the main "crops" here is slash pine, which is what most paper is made from. TONS of papermills. Papermills use tons of water. They don't use crap water either, they pump the good stuff out of deep aquifers. We've got salt intrusion all down the damn coast, up into S. Carolina, and down into Florida. What does that mean? It means your magic well in a coastal county is full of salt, and the salt is moving inland. Why?
Ground water takes a while to replenish, and aquifers take, literally, centuries. When you pump water out of the ground, it doesn't come right back, and when it does come back, it moves in from the surrounding area and the ground water levels everywhere go down. That's the whole idea of a watershed, and there are 52 watersheds [riversalive.org] in georgia. Sounds like a lot doesn't it? Well there are 5 around atlanta, and they're all laughably overutilized. Pull that water out of the ground and dump it in a river, and some evaporates, and the rest of it flows on out to sea. Only the tiniest fraction of that water makes it back into the ground. So when you have low ground water on the coast, the ocean moves in to fill the lack.
A hundred years ago you could drill a hole in the ground, and you'd get a spring, water bubbling out on it's own. Now you drill a hole 5 times as deep, and put a big pump on it to get the same amount. We're running it down, and running it down quick, and, thanks to the attitude that we live in a land of inexaustable water, it's only getting worse.
I'm not that much of an environmentalist. I'm really not. But water is a big deal, a HUGE deal, and people who think that the supply is inexhaustable anywhere are living in a dreamworld. In the Southeast, it's a problem. In the midwest, it's a crisis, we're talking 10 years at best. It's no better in the west. We need a way to create cheap, clean water, and we need it BAD and we need it NOW. Failing that, we need people to stop blowing water on crap that doesn't matter.
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2)
In that case, have at it, but you ar a rare exception.
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:5, Informative)
Plant a lawn that works with your local climate. It's better for the environment and better for the household budget.
Re:stop watering your lawn (Score:2)
Maybe it's just that paticular species in the photo that's ugly, or maybe he just has a lumply lawn.
Note that that kind of grass contains 8 genuses...
Great... (Score:2)
Huge boon to hydrogen economy? (Score:4, Interesting)
-Rick
Or huge boon to Uranium enrichment... (Score:3, Interesting)
Steve
Re:Huge boon to hydrogen economy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huge boon to hydrogen economy? (Score:2)
Unfortuately we probably are already in the days of cheap power since we have easily accessable oil. Getting the power usage down for a process so that it can be more easily done even if power isn't cheap is a good goal - a desalinator that user very little power could be put virtually anywhere with a small solar panel, portable d
If it involved boiling the water... (Score:5, Funny)
End Our Wet Drought! (Score:3, Interesting)
Although Thames Water fixing all the leaks could also be a huge help...
Re:End Our Wet Drought! (Score:2)
Mandatory "Top Secret" reference (Score:5, Funny)
- WOW! They'd have enough salt to last forever!
Small pore, more flow ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Cool work nevertheless. I wish they could do something with silicon nanowires as silicon is the second most abundant element on earth.
Re:Small pore, more flow ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps this increased flow is an indication that nanotubes are also very resitant to atmospheric wear (which would be a boon to using them for large-scale structures). Or perhaps it's an indication that they wear down at an accelerated pace.
All I know is that it is so awesome tha
Re:Small pore, more flow ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Water is an incredible molecule. It's affinity for weak bonding at boundary layers is legendary and might prove to be what is occurring here as well. Think about the edge of the water in your glass - it curves upward. You get the two edges together and it races up the glass.
That's my hypothesis anyway.
Re:Small pore, more flow ? (Score:5, Informative)
The reason that the gas and liquid transport through nanotubes is so much higher than you might expect is due to the smoothness of the inside walls. The classic hydrodynamic equations have some amount of surface roughness inherently built into them. If you just naively scale them down to nano-dimensions, you'll predict very high resistance to fluid flow. However carbon nanotubes have "perfect" inside walls, that are atomically flat. This allows the water molecules (or gas, or whatever travelling inside them) to travel without "getting caught" or "bumping" into defects. In essence the atomic smoothness of the walls brings us into a whole new (nano) hydrodynamic regime.
This effect was predicted by computer simulations previously, but now has been actually observed in real samples. Very impressive.
Re:Small pore, more flow ? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Small pore, more flow ? (Score:2)
Laminar flow + less friction is a possibility.
could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2, Interesting)
Where are these US water shortages? Broadband in the US may suck but I wasn't aware of any water rationing.
Also, this micro fluid dynamics intrigues me. Increased flow rate at reduced diameters. Very cool. Sounds like a possible research field for the old PhD.
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2)
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2, Interesting)
interestingly, parts of florida are very dry right now. they've been having wildfires and have had to shut down i-95 more than once due to smoke and other hazards. some were ho
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if there's salt in the water and you attempt electrolysis, you'll get chlorine gas and NaOH in solution. It's actually the modern process for producing sodium lye (aptly named the chlor-alkali process). Once you run out of chloride ions to convert to chlorine, then you start to produce hydrogen gas, but now you've got some high pH liquid in your reaction vessel, and you probably have other reactions going on that you didn't intend...
Regards,
Ross
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2)
I know, I know, there are lots of other challenges, but its a baby step.
Yup. Now the only major hurdle is the fact that hydrogen production is endothermic.
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2)
Would you consider a water war to be a form of rationing? Research the history of Los Angeles.
Famous saying, sometimes attributed to Mark Twain, sometimes to Texas tradition: "Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over"
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2)
Re:could be important for a hydrogen economy (Score:2)
I think you're confused. The Mojave certainly doesn't flow into the Colorado, although it's possible (but unknown if) it did during the last ice age.
However, it's good to find that I'm not the only
Materials science must be the top-level science (Score:4, Insightful)
But all the uses found for a new material and all the new applications discovered - in many respects it certaily seems to be the most fruitful science (at least in the engineering and day-to-day sense).
Re:Materials science must be the top-level science (Score:2)
Re:Materials science must be the top-level science (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Materials science must be the top-level science (Score:2)
The bike is made of nanotubes kind of the same way you can make a pile of legos. The legos aren't being used as they should or could, but the pile is made of legos nonetheless.
Re:Materials science must be the top-level science (Score:2)
If this new type of filter works it will mean major changes all over the world.
That's what's cool about material science. It may be slow but it can create all sorts of disruptive technology.
Perfect example (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2, Funny)
nano (Score:2, Funny)
Re:nano (Score:2)
Re:nano (Score:2)
Desalinization vs Condensation? (Score:2)
I wonder how it compares to Condensation?
The way that isn't mentioned in the article is to use a warm climate, moderately warm salt water, and relatively cold salt water to get the warmer water to condense from the air into a collection well. A half filled tank of warm water with cold water lines running over the water reservior will cause fresh water to condense on the lines, where it can then be collected.
If you compare this to the initial costs of replacing nano-tube filters, I bet it is competitive, if
Re:Desalinization vs Condensation? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be more efficient (and cheaper) by simply being, well, simpler.
Re:Desalinization vs Condensation? (Score:2)
The problem is that there aren't huge numbers of s
1000 BTU/pound of water (Score:5, Informative)
That ocean water scheme is taking much lower grade heat, thermodynamically, than the energy in Diesel fuel, but it still requires 1000 BTU's of heat per pound of water (8000 BTU's per gallon). That is a lot of heat to take out of the environment, and a lot of heat to transfer.
Another way for more efficient desalination is to recycle that 1000 BTU/lb -- use 1000 BTU to evaporate a pound of water to purify it and then condense that water vapor to get back that heat to evaporate more water. Trouble is that water condenses at the same temperature it evaporates, and you need at least a small temperature differential to get heat to flow downhill.
There are two approaches to recycling the heat. One approach is multi-effect distillation. You evaporate at a higher temperature and pressure, and then condense at that same temperature, which you use to evaporate other water at a lower temperature and pressure in a vacuum chamber. You have a cascade of evaporators at successively lower pressures and keep reusing the same heat. This method was developed by Norbert Rillieux, the Louisiana son of a French engineer and an American former slave, and is widely used in food preparation -- sugar from cane or beets, orange juice concentrate, and so on.
The second approach is vapor compression. You boil at one temperature, but you condense at a higher temperature by compressing the vapor to a higher pressure using something akin to an automotive supercharger driven by an electric motor, and that way the heat from condensing at a slightly higher temperature and pressure is recovered by the evaporator. This requires only a single "effect" on account of the vapor pump instead of the multi-effect cascade into successively lower pressure chambers, but it needs the electric motor and vapor pump, and you need to move a lot of heat at low temperature differentials across large surface area plate heat exchangers.
Reverse osmosis is a pure mechanical process that doesn't require exchange of the 1000 BTUs per pound of water, but the osmosis membrane offers resistance to pumping in excess of the natural osmotic pressure (the pressure differential required to overcome the salinity differential, the PV work representing the true thermodynamic cost of desalinating the water, which is much less than the 1000 BTU's per pound). By the way, it is always more cost effective to desalinate slightly-salty (brackish) water from marshes or irrigation runoff or other sources than going for the highly-salty sea water on account of the energy inherent in the dissolved salt as reflected in the higher osmotic pressure).
Re:1000 BTU/pound of water (Score:2)
I never understood why anybody would use direct evaporation for that entire process. It's naturally cold where sugar maples grow, and a signifigant portion of the concentration process could be done just by letting the sap freeze and removing the (almost pure) water ice from the vessel.
Full Article (Slashdotted) (Score:2, Informative)
Carbon nanotube-based membranes will dramatically cut the cost of desalination.
A water desalination system using carbon nanotube-based membranes could significantly reduce the cost of purifying water from the ocean. The technology could potentially provide a solution to water shortages both in the United States, where populations are expected to soar in areas with few freshwater sources, and worldwide, where a lack of clean water is a major cause of disease.
The new membran
Re:Full Article (Slashdotted) (Score:2)
Amount of Waste Water? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Amount of Waste Water? (Score:2)
'Waste water' concerns of desalinization, sheesh.
Re:Amount of Waste Water? (Score:2)
Energy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Energy (Score:2)
Orchid fractals (Score:5, Interesting)
They are the result of monitoring crowd flow dynamics and producing the formulas.
They too noticed that for a large crowd (concert, football match) crowd flow speed INCREASES with a number of small gates rather than one large gate, hence one by one through the turnstyles actually makes the process quicker.
This appears to be a similar unintuitive process.
Anyway, I know it wasn't totally on topic I just thought I would share.
Re:Orchid fractals (Score:2)
a lot of things are un-intuitive, but correct.
And as a side effect... (Score:3, Interesting)
Just being able to desalinize water cheaply is a pretty damn big breakthrough though, I know Los Angeles could use it with all the draughts they have. I mean how ironic is it that they'll have a 7 year drought and water shortages, and yet be right on the coast of the largest body of water in the world?
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
Initial toxicity test refuted. (Score:4, Informative)
Based on this, carbon nanotubes should probably be considered cleared of causing cell death for now.
Inconvenient for your filter, but a boon for many many other applications.
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
The it was deemed to expensive(even though the largest portion of the expense had all ready been sunk) to run. Since them it has been stripped for parts and rendered useless.
ANother issue were (concerned citizens*) screwed up a good thing.
Concerned enough to be busy bodies, not concerned enough to look at what was going on, and make an attempt to understand the purpose of the plants.
gah.
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
Los Angeles isn't having water problems because it lacks water - but because it has too many people living in what is essentially a desert.
Re:And as a side effect... (Score:2)
Well, actually it's more because everyone in L.A. INSISTS on having lush grass, tropical trees, etc., despite the limited water. If it wasn't used for irrigation, the current supplies would be plenty.
There's nothing wrong with the desert, per se.
Percentage salt remaining? (Score:2, Insightful)
This would be a major concern in areas where desertification is already rampant.
I have no idea what the accepatble level is, but it needs to be damn low before you can irrigate w
clueless (Score:2)
Re:clueless (Score:2)
First rain water is esentialy distilled water so it washes out the salt accumilation in the soil; where irrigation is the only source it will build chlorides. What the Mesopotamian's called irrigated crop lands, the Iraqis call salt marshes
Re:Percentage salt remaining? (Score:2)
Well, 0.001% is awfully low. Still, even if there are unacceptable ammounts of salt left-over, farmers will just have to add some calcium to the water to counteract it, and possibly some magnesium and potassium as well.
Very important topic (Score:3, Insightful)
I like the other method... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Why do they bother calling it "reverse osmosis?" From a quick review of high school biology, I have come to realize "reverse osmosis" really means "pumping through a filter."
2) I saw this other method in Discover that I really liked. Basically, it proposes using deep water and methane to flash-freeze water. All you need to do is to pump methane into water of the right depth, and it instantly freezes into that flammable ice mining rigs love to dig up and play with, without like, refrigerating it. Anyways, as it freezes, all the salt gets pushed out and it floats to the top, so all you have to do is melt the ice and reuse the methane. It appealed to the recycler in me, and it seems to me some tubes and plumbing would be easier than nanotubes, eh?
But but but... (Score:2)
Nano? (Score:2)
arctic salt (Score:2)
It can trap green house gasses? (Score:2)
Water + salt through filter clogs system? (Score:4, Interesting)
Getting skeptical of all this nano (Score:3, Insightful)
I really am looking forward to batteries lasting 100x longer, nanopaper and this latest discovery. I just have absolutely no read on how far we are out on practical implementations of this technology.
There are NO watersources in the desert (Score:2)
I thought the southwest, particularly Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona, was where the population is going to boom and there are water shortages. Don't these areas have water shortages PERIOD, as opposed to just shortages of FRESH water?
Re:There are NO watersources in the desert (Score:2)
Why two words? desalination / desalinization (Score:2, Insightful)
It reminds me of the contention between regardless and irregardless. Yeah, I hate irregardless too.
Drink your pee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good stop-gap solution... (Score:2)
Yes. We should. We should do both in parallel. We are doing so. Therefore your comment is utterly useless. Thank you, please drive through.
Re:right - until you read the text. (Score:2)
BTW, this year's global production of carbon nanotubes is expected to be around 100 tonnes. Probably outmassing iPod nanos.
Vik
Re:right (Score:2)
Yes. Protons, neutrons and electrons.
Re:right (Score:2)
No, they are made of the same stuff that inkjet printer ink is made from.
Yes, really.
Do Not Eat iPod Nano (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Huge breakthrough (Score:2)