14 ms·
Solar-powered desalination device wins MIT $100K competition
- dullynotsonumb 4y agoFirst place project is great! But can't help myself and not compare the second place with other projects that are mentioned and feel speachless..
- Hithredin 4y agoYeah... Such a great idea to have every company discussion validated and approved by an AI.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kaycebasques 4y agoExciting! This wouldn't help with problems like lead in the water, would it?
- MichaelApproved 4y agoI think it’s meant to provide an emergency source of water for drinking. You wouldn’t want to use this for a large population for a prolonged period of time because you’d have trouble disposing of all the salt waste. Figuring out how to handle the salt byproduct is a critical part of long term desalination.
- thghtihadanacct 4y agoMaybe we can place the effluent at the base of a glacier so it buffers the fresh water coming off the melting glaciers and keeps the ocean running? /s
- beaned 4y agoCan you pack it and sell it?
- celim307 4y agoThat’s a looooooot of salt, way more than you’re ever gonna use up through food, and it’s heavy. And corrosive.
- 41b696ef1113 4y ago1,000,000 humans require 4,000,000 liters of water daily. Seawater is 3.5% salt (35g/l), giving us 140,000,000g of salt. If we assume NaCl, with a density of 2.17g/cm3, that gives us 64,500,000 cm3 of salt, or 64.5 m3. I am getting a range of capacities on dump trucks, but somewhere on the order of 10m3 per truck. So 6-7 dump trucks dropping salt into the middle of nowhere. That does not sound like an infeasible problem for maintaining 1e6 humans? Expecting Cunningham’s Law to show I goofed the math.
- sidewndr46 4y agoMy understanding is some US salt flats are actually restored on annual basis to facilitate high speed racing on them. So if you didn't mind trucking it a very long distance, they'd be happy to have you dump it out there.
- oceanplexian 4y agoHumans require a lot more than 4L daily if you count sanitation, food production, and so on. But it’s still true that ultimately it’s not a lot of water if we wanted to put our minds to it.
- VBprogrammer 4y agoI think your main issue is that the NaCl doesn't come out in a pure crystalline form. It's a higher concentrated brine but still contains an awful lot of water.
- 4y ago
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoHow much salt are we talking? A large portion of the country coats all paved surfaces with it during and after every snow/freezing rain. Shut down the salt mines if need be.
- imtringued 4y agoJust contaminate the entire country with random substances. What could possibly go wrong?
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoI agree your perspective, but the salt could be cheaply tested at various stages for whatever contaminants you’re afraid of. How much testing do you think is done on the lettuce you eat? Or the beef you buy? Or the flame retardants in your carpet, clothing, flooring, and furniture? What about the bpa alternatives in all good grade plastics? What about Teflon’s and other forever chemicals? The answer is only as little as everyone can get away with because the people with authority don’t have the means to deal with their actual workload or the fallout of shutting down massive companies indefinitely. Ignorance ain’t bliss, but it may be better than knowing I’m powerless against the greedy fascists mortgaging the survivability of earth for yachts, drugs, and vanity today.
- izzydata 4y agoPut it on a rocket ship and fly it into the sun of course.
- worldsayshi 4y agoI don't see what the issue would be of just dumping it back into the ocean if you find no better use for it?
- barathr 4y agoWhile this is a nice project for emergency and remote uses, what we really need re: desalination in places like California (and other variable / dry climates) is large-scale desalination tied to opportunity power (such as curtailed grid power). With each passing year there's going to be more and more solar on the grid, and it's going to be hard to soak up that power during the daytime peak. Desalination matches the solar supply curve perfectly: there's more water demand during the day, and there's also more water demand during the summer when there's also more sun. It's the ultimate dispatchable load.
- elihu 4y ago..also, water storage is fairly straightforward, so the water usage peak doesn't have to exactly track with the daily solar power production peak.
- hardwaresofton 4y agodepending on how you build the storage, you could also use the excess water for power, no? Some sort of gravity battery setup.
- thghtihadanacct 4y agogot get it up there ... places like Cali dont have a lot of rain that places itself up there and runoff is running out.
- rtkwe 4y agoThat's the point you can pump the water higher using excess renewable energy (in the event we get past 100% peak renewable power) to be used later when there's a deficiency. It's a fairly efficient method of time-shifting renewables without having to mine huge piles of lithium.
- Ekaros 4y agoPumped hydro if geography permits is very good storage method. Efficiency is not horrible, it is simple to ramp up and down. Technology is extremely mature. It scales pretty well. And as final bonus in some cases it can contribute to grid stability.
- elihu 4y agoThe article links to another article with a lot more detail about the system: https://news.mit.edu/2022/portable-desalination-drinking-water-0428 https://news.mit.edu/2022/portable-desalination-drinking-wat... 20 watt hours per liter of water seems to be the important number. I wonder if this system would also work for concentrating brines, if one's goal wasn't to produce clean water but rather extract certain valuable minerals, like lithium?
- WaitWaitWha 4y agoSlight correction > Their prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 liters per hour, and requires only 20 watt-hours per liter. So it takes 3+ hours to make a liter, using 20Wh.
- jakear 4y agoSo? It's trivially paralleled, this isn't a case of 9 women making a baby in a month. Just run three devices, get 1 liter in 1 hour with 20 watts.
- jvalencia 4y ago20 watts each -> 60 watts?
- Dylan16807 4y ago20 watt-hours per liter multiplied by .3 liters per hour equals 6 watts each.
- jvalencia 4y agothanks, read that too fast
- thghtihadanacct 4y agoLots of gold in that water too. Mostly salt tho
- madengr 4y ago
- fennecs 4y agoWhy are there so many water from x devices from MIT. Water from air, water from salt water etc. Is this all they do lol? Is there a group of people responsible?
- junon 4y agoBecause it's a continual issue in the world, perhaps?
- steve76 4y ago
- buescher 4y agoYes. There's government money for "water and sanitation issues". NGO money too, but most of that is government money. All of which issues have conventional solutions, but it's hard to assert you have a breakthrough with an incremental improvement to conventional solutions. And most of the time, deep incremental improvements require a lot of practical domain knowledge of the sort academics and especially their graduate students don't have. You can probably still win an award for proposing using a lawn roller, as described in U.S. patent 1538550, filed in 1924, for transporting water in developing countries. If you're the right sort of person. More than one person has. Actually figuring out how to bring sewers and water treatment and indoor plumbing to people in developing nations, that's too hard, too much like work, undeserving of your unique genius.
- plaguepilled 4y agoThis is legitimately uplifting. I've lived without drinkable water on tap for just a few weeks, and its not a fun experience. Huge props to MIT and the research team for this.
- WalterBright 4y agoI don't get it. Survival books show how to make a solar still with a plastic tarp, cup, straw, some rocks, and a hole in the dirt.
- turtledove 4y agoHow much water does that produce, and how much human labor must go into collecting it, and how well does it work in windy or cold conditions?
- WalterBright 4y ago> How much water does that produce Depends on how big it is, and the amount of sunshine > how much human labor must go into collecting it That's what the straw and cup is for. You put your lips around the straw and suck. > how well does it work in windy or cold conditions As well as evaporation works on windy or cold days. It won't work when it's raining, but then you wouldn't need it when it's raining. BTW, why would wind affect it?
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoA good survival book will also tell you that just one of those won't produce enough water for one person to survive on.
- WalterBright 4y agoYou can make more than one. You can make a larger one.
- cestith 4y agoSolar stills can be simpler or far more complex than that, too. One design's just a milk jug and some aquarium tubing. Others are shed-sized or barn-sized construction projects. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31422582 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31422582
- siliconescapee 4y agoThis is incredibly inefficient compared to existing desalinization devices. My boat has a watermaker that uses 4w/liter and it isn't even state of the art. This is 5x less efficient. It is also incredibly low volume. There is novelty in the method, and in not using filter mediums. But those differences aren't going to matter if it isn't an order of magnitude more efficient. You could buy an inflatable evaporative device off amazon today to desalinate seawater that makes far more water with no electrical input at all. I'm a bit saddened to see this show up on HN after it made the rounds on FB groups a month ago, where it was debunked. The world has fresh water problems and desalinization at scale with higher efficiency would be a huge unlock. That is exciting. But I'm not sure why this particular approach is getting attention given it underperforms so badly. Except maybe that the letters MIT and a lot of journalists that don't care as long as you clicked.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Commodore63 4y agoNot using filters is huge! RO watermakers are really sensitive to poor quality water. Algae from last year's heat wave knocked out a lot of watermakers in Pacific waters.
- sitkack 4y agoFrom the paper > The portable system desalinates brackish water and seawater (2.5−45 g/L) into drinkable water (defined by WHO guideline), with the energy consumptions of 0.4−4 (brackish water) and 15.6−26.6 W h/L (seawater), respectively. So it consumes 26Wh/L turning nasty lowtide into drinkable water with no filter. A 300W solar panel could then produce 10L of water per hour for probably 5 hours a day. 50L a day per panel. That is amazing!
- kirrent 4y agoWithout knowing more about this device it's a bit hard to make a true comparison to existing marine RO devices but there are a few reasons I've been following with (skeptical) interest: - Low volume - RO devices don't scale down well. The Katadyn 40E is the smallest watermaker I can find and it produces 6l/h. This is an insane amount of water that I have no use for. 10l a day would be enough for two people. Unfortunately there aren't cheaper and lighter options available. - Storage - No pickling would be really nice. - Membrane - Not needing to replace membranes would also be nice. - Efficiency - I don't care too much about efficiency because most of the time during the day we have plenty of power from 400W of solar panels sized for days and days of cloud. That said, smaller RO devices also have poorer efficiency, e.g. 9Wh/l in the 40E. Other results in the literature suggests there could be plenty of room left to improve in efficiency from the MIT prototype. Depending on cost, I think there's a niche for something that addresses the lower end of the market in watermakers.
- sambroner 4y agoCongratulations to Bruce & Team! Always exciting to see a classmate building cool stuff.
- demadog 4y ago$100k? Most SV engineers could self-fund that. Why not make it $1m+?
- s1artibartfast 4y agoBecause it is a school project and not subject to any realistic assessment of commercial viability or innovation.
- noisy_boy 4y ago> The winner of this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition is commercializing a new water desalination technology. > The company has already developed a small prototype that produces clean drinking water. With its winnings, Nona will build more prototypes to give to early customers. > The company plans to sell its first units to sailors before moving into the emergency preparedness space in the U.S., which it estimates to be a $5 billion industry. From there, it hopes to scale globally to help with disaster relief. The technology could also possibly be used for hydrogen production, oil and gas separation, and more. I think it is a bit beyond just being a school project (and I sincerely wish them all the best).
- s1artibartfast 4y agoJust about every engineering school has one of these. They put together a poster and business plan that said what they want to do.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoCertainly more exciting than the second place prize >Inclusive.ly can scan a range of communications and make suggestions for improvement. The algorithm can detect discrimination, microaggression, and condescension, and the founders say it analyzes language in a more nuanced way than tools like Grammarly. >The company is currently developing a plugin for web browsers and is hoping to partner with large enterprise customers later this year. It will work with internal communications like emails as well as external communications like sales and marketing material.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- closewith 4y agoThat’s horrifying.
- Biologist123 4y ago“We make our tools and then our tools make us”. One can see the possibly good (or commercial) intent in this - but it also creates the realisation for the thought police to be inserted into AI. A relevant quote from my clippings: "we have become so deeply habituated to the traditions of written language – our minds are quite literally shaped by them, like a gourd that is grown into a mould […]”.
- antupis 4y agoI think it is fine as long as it works same way as grammarly. You don’t want lose customer becouse you sounded like ass on email. Otherhand running this kinda solution at corporate slack or all outbounding messages mass censorship way sounds horrible.
- jimbob45 4y agoIf you’re afraid of your employees’ behavior around customers, you need to look at your HR hiring practices, not to Big Brother. This is the kind of stuff that will cause good prospects to avoid ever applying to your company. Nobody wants to be second-guessed by a robot overlord (proof: Clippy).
- noisy_boy 4y ago> Nona Desalination says it has developed a device capable of producing enough drinking water for 10 people at half the cost and with 1/10th the power of other water desalination devices. Not sure if it is a coincidence or not but "Nona" means salty in Bengali[0]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_language
- danbruc 4y agoProbably a coincidence, somewhere I saw the device name stylized as »no Na+«.
- metaphor 4y agoThe winning team's research was previously discussed[1] a few weeks ago. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200793 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31200793
- turtledove 4y agoAll of our fresh water comes from evaporation and precipitation. I'm curious if there have been attempts to increase evaporation as a means of producing water in areas with excess solar energy. I know industrial plants use reverse osmosis, but is there somewhere experimenting with creating structures to encourage evaporation and then capturing the water vapor at scale? (Passively, I mean. I know we can just boil water at scale with expensive industrial systems.)
- adrianN 4y agoPlanting lots of trees is a moderately successful way of combating desertification.
- Cthulhu_ 4y agoI know sea salt is produced by filling up big pools and letting the sun do its thing, but capturing the water is challenging. Although come to think of it, existing greenhouse technology would work, "just" fill a greenhouse with a layer of water or let it mist, then capture the precipitation off the roof. I'm pretty sure it needs a way to passively cool the thing though. I'm also sure there's a lot of factors why this wouldn't work, probably due to scalability compared to alternatives like reverse osmosis, land use, etc.
- cestith 4y agoSolar stills work by putting something that can be as simple as a sheet of clear plastic over a hole in the ground, and putting a bowl under the peak of the sheet. A greenhouse with a brackish pool and a way to collect the precipitation would be a scaled up version. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/solar-still https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/solar-still https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+still&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=solar+still&iax=images&ia=images
- rcMgD2BwE72F 4y ago>I'm curious if there have been attempts to increase evaporation as a means of producing water in areas with excess solar energy. I guess we'd yield far better results in the long term by investing to lower greenhouse gas emissions anywhere in the world. We're still building coal plants in 2022!
- voodoochilo 4y ago
- LoveMortuus 4y agoIn the whole article there isn't a single photo of the device...
- westcort 4y agoKey takeaways: * Nona uses a technology developed in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics that removes salt and bacteria from seawater using an electrical current * “Because we can do all this at super low pressure, we don’t need the high-pressure pump [used in reverse osmosis], so we don’t need a lot of electricity,” says Crawford, who co-founded the company with MIT Research Scientist Junghyo Yoon * The company has already developed a small prototype that produces clean drinking water * The audience choice award went to Sparkle, which has developed a molecular dye technology that can illuminate tumors, making them easier to remove during surgery * The MIT $100K is MIT’s largest entrepreneurship competition * “Our device runs on less power than a cell phone charger.” The founders cited problems like tropical storms, drought, and infrastructure crises like the one in Flint, Michigan, to underscore that clean water access is not just a problem in developing countries * The technology could also possibly be used for hydrogen production, oil and gas separation, and more * “Our mission is to make portable desalination sustainable and easy,” said Nona CEO and MIT MBA candidate Bruce Crawford in the winning pitch, delivered to an audience in the Kresge Auditorium and online If you want to see the others, please go here: https://www.mit100k.org/launch https://www.mit100k.org/launch