New Purification Device Can Make Safe Drinking Water Out Of Even The Dead Sea

[rangerrebew]

New Purification Device Can Make Safe Drinking Water Out Of Even The Dead Sea

By Jonathan O`Callaghan
06 Apr 2018, 15:40

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin say they’ve created a device that can generate clean and safe drinking water using just sunlight and a cheap gel.

Published in Nature Nanotechnology, the system uses combined gel-polymer hybrid materials known as hydrogels to purify water. With solar-absorbing and hydrophilic properties, meaning they are attracted to water, the team says this can produce clean water from any source – even the Dead Sea.

“We have essentially rewritten the entire approach to conventional solar water evaporation,” said team leader Guihua Yu, one of the study’s co-authors, in a statement.

http://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-purification-device-can-make-safe-drinking-water-out-of-even-the-dead-sea/

[Sanguine]

@verga, did you see this?

[Free Vulcan]

If we could find a way to do cheap, large scale water purification - and even better - reclaim the filtered minerals while also breaking down the residual toxins economically, it would be a true technological revolution that would improve billions of lives.

[Smokin Joe]

If we could find a way to do cheap, large scale water purification - and even better - reclaim the filtered minerals while also breaking down the residual toxins economically, it would be a true technological revolution that would improve billions of lives.

If it is economical and portable enough, imagine the frac water reclamation for re-use that could be done. Even production water could be 'cleaned up' to use in fraccing operations in places where water just isn't that common. not to mention be used for irrigation....or even human consumption. Make the deserts bloom.

[240B]

If true, this would be as revolutionary as cold fusion. I am curbing my enthusiasm waiting for further verification of this discovery and its commercial viability. Everyone lost their minds in 89 thinking cold fusion was a reality. Now, I prefer to wait and see.


I hope so, very exciting.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

Sorry, what I imagine is the mountains of contaminants piled up as far as the eye can see.

Once while visiting a producing field onshore Kuwait many years ago while being driven by the production manager, I remarked to him what are the hills we were driving by.  We stopped the vehicle and walked up one of them, a salt water 'retention pond'.  It was a mile across and where the salt water was sent from the wells being produced, to be evaporated by the sun.

I later read a report that said that if these practices were retained, the salt precipitated by the salt water would cover the entire country with ten feet of salt after only a couple of decades.

Bottomline:  Concentrating the contaminants can be worse than the contaminants being present in the first place.

[Taxcontrol]

Here out in the western US (Colorado), there is an OLD saying:

Whiskey is for drinking
Water is for fighting over.

[verga]

@verga, did you see this?

@Sanguine Thank you, I will look into it.

[Smokin Joe]

Sorry, what I imagine is the mountains of contaminants piled up as far as the eye can see.

Once while visiting a producing field onshore Kuwait many years ago while being driven by the production manager, I remarked to him what are the hills we were driving by.  We stopped the vehicle and walked up one of them, a salt water 'retention pond'.  It was a mile across and where the salt water was sent from the wells being produced, to be evaporated by the sun.

I later read a report that said that if these practices were retained, the salt precipitated by the salt water would cover the entire country with ten feet of salt after only a couple of decades.

Bottomline:  Concentrating the contaminants can be worse than the contaminants being present in the first place.

One man's trash is often another's treasure. In this country, we mine salt. It would only be a question of someone coming up with an economical way to process those contaminants for useful fractions.

[Sanguine]

If it is economical and portable enough, imagine the frac water reclamation for re-use that could be done. Even production water could be 'cleaned up' to use in fraccing operations in places where water just isn't that common. not to mention be used for irrigation....or even human consumption. Make the deserts bloom.

Like west Texas!

[240B]

One man's trash is often another's treasure. In this country, we mine salt. It would only be a question of someone coming up with an economical way to process those contaminants for useful fractions.

Exactly.
That waste pile would become a commodity. Companies would be bidding on it to refine it for whatever myriad of chemicals they can extract from it. Chem piles are only waste when it is all lumped together. Once the individual components are separated and refined, it become a saleable product(s).

[Sanguine]

@Sanguine Thank you, I will look into it.

@verga, if it were me interested in this technology, I would just email the lead two or three authors on the paper and tell them why this is of interest to me and that I like to help with field trials, if and when that happens. 

For instance, here is the contact info on the lead researcher:  https://directory.utexas.edu/index.php?q=zhao%2C+fia&scope=all&i=10

[Smokin Joe]

Like west Texas!

Funny you should say that.... But you'd have to find a use for caliche....

[Sanguine]

Funny you should say that.... But you'd have to find a use for caliche....

There is that...

[truth_seeker]

One man's trash is often another's treasure. In this country, we mine salt. It would only be a question of someone coming up with an economical way to process those contaminants for useful fractions.

My city is built on top of a producing oil field.

As it continued to fill up, certain "production islands" were retained. But when production declined and prices stayed low, wells were abandoned. Still later the sites were cleaned up, new homes and golf courses were built.

Today the number of $1-2+ million homes built over previous oil fields numbers in the thousands.

Some are gated, some not. But all are short distances to the Pacific Ocean and great weather. And re-elect Dana Rohrabacher R-CA.

A big desalinization plant is likely here too. Plus we have an electric generating plant, being completely rebuilt.

Second generation Asian doctors, dentists, computer technology workers,  etc. have replaced defense-aerospace engineers, building craftsmen, etc.

No worry with world class location, location, location.     

[IsailedawayfromFR]

One man's trash is often another's treasure. In this country, we mine salt. It would only be a question of someone coming up with an economical way to process those contaminants for useful fractions.

Salt is one thing, but what about all those myriad of minerals also precipitated out?

In geothermal systems I used to work, those contaminants were one of the toughest things to figure out to make the geothermal plant work.

Oh, and BTW, a lot of them are NORM

[Smokin Joe]

Salt is one thing, but what about all those myriad of minerals also precipitated out?

In geothermal systems I used to work, those contaminants were one of the toughest things to figure out to make the geothermal plant work.

Oh, and BTW, a lot of them are NORM

Well, that complicates things. Some of those have their uses, but there are places I wouldn't want to concentrate them. Too much 'dirty bomb' potential.

[verga]

@verga, if it were me interested in this technology, I would just email the lead two or three authors on the paper and tell them why this is of interest to me and that I like to help with field trials, if and when that happens. 

For instance, here is the contact info on the lead researcher:  https://directory.utexas.edu/index.php?q=zhao%2C+fia&scope=all&i=10

@Sanguine Thank you, sorry for the delay, been off the puter for several days now.