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  • Rice University

    Researchers can now desalinate seawater with the power of the Sun

    by 
    Andrew Tarantola
    Andrew Tarantola
    06.19.2017

    One of the oldest means of extracting potable liquid from seawater involves distillation, basically boiling the water into steam and then cooling the purified vapor in condensation tubes. Problem is, this method is incredibly power intensive with nearly half of the input energy going towards just boiling the water. But, a team of researchers from Rice University have developed a new technique that not only drastically reduces the amount of energy needed but can decouple the process from the power grid altogether.