Lockheed Martin developed a nano-tech membrane in the past year or two that is much thinner but does as well as conventional desalinization via membrane.
The benefit is using a few percent of the current power requirements for desalinization via membrane filtering.
We should be building desalinization plants like this in Texas, California and Florida to meet freshwater demands, in addition to the wastewater recycling efforts.
I wish we could sell it to environmentalists as saving the smelt AND migrant farm workers, while making the defense contractor into a peaceful infrastructure developer. Build desalinization instead of jets!
But they’ll oppose anything new but artwork.
What is the byproduct of desalinization? How much usable materials could be gleaned from this process?