Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99% Cheaper

[osan]

​http://www.disclose.tv/news/Making_S...#ixzz2O2ciUEsk

Making Salt Water Drinkable Just Got 99 Percent Cheaper


March 20, 2013 - Access to steady supplies of clean water is getting more and more difficult in the developing world, especially as demand skyrockets. In response, many countries have turned to the sea for potable fluids but existing reverse osmosis plants rely on complicated processes that are expensive and energy-intensive to operate.

Good thing, engineers at Lockheed Martin have just announced a newly-developed salt filter that could reduce desalination energy costs by 99 percent.

The Reverse Osmosis process works on a simple principle: molecules within a liquid will flow across a semi-permeable membrane from areas of higher concentration to lower until both sides reach an equilibrium. But that same membrane can act as a filter for large molecules and ions if outside pressure is applied to one side of the system. For desalination, the process typically employs a sheet of thin-film composite (TFC) membrane which is made from an active thin-film layer of polyimide stacked on a porous layer of polysulfone. The problem with these membranes is that their thickness requires the presence of large amounts of pressure (and energy) to press water through them.

Lockheed Martin’s Perforene, on the other hand, is made from single atom-thick sheets of graphene. Because the sheets are so thin, water flows through them far more easily than through a conventional TFC. Filters made through the Perforene process would incorporate filtering holes just 100nm in diameter — large enough to let water molecules through but small enough to capture dissolved salts. It looks a bit like chicken wire when viewed under a microscope, John Stetson, the Lockheed engineer credited with its invention, told Reuters. But kilo for kilo, its 1000 times stronger than steel.

“It’s 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger,” Stetson explained to Reuters. “The energy that’s required and the pressure that’s required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less.”

Lockheed is reportedly already ramping up production efforts for the filters — and trying to find a way to keep them from tearing — though there are no announced plans on when they’d hit the market. Tomorrow isn’t soon enough. [


Sources and more information:
• Lockheed Martin's Perforene Needs to Meet Damian Palin
• Lockheed Martin finds way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater
• Pentagon weapons-maker finds method for cheap, clean water


Read more: http://www.disclose.tv/news/Making_S...#ixzz2OMupo2CB

[Bruno]

Amazing, that's quite a leap in technology.

[torchbearer]

if they weren't so busy building machines of war, we'd have solved a lot of the social ills through technological gain.

[Dr.3D]

There have been many who have been working on the use of molecular sieves for the desalination of water. Seems there is a lot of hype for this one rather than using the others.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babba...7/desalination
http://www.desalination.com/wdr/48/2...s-show-promise
http://www.popsci.com/technology/art...kable-seawater

[nivbot]

I have to agree there

[talkingpointes]

This will enable Northern Africa and the Middle East to transform into farming communities and hopefully use enough water to lower the oceans.

[LibertyRevolution]

Graphene is one of those epic discoveries. It will change the world like going from vacuum tubes to transistors did.
Check out this video:

[mrsat_98]

This will enable Northern Africa and the Middle East to transform into farming communities and hopefully use enough water to lower the oceans.

Al Gore has had this secretly for years otherwise we would have all ready drowned.