Posted on 04/16/2019 5:56:26 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Interfacial evaporators are made of thin materials that float on saline water. Absorbing solar heat on top, the evaporators continuously pull up the saline water from below and convert it to steam on their top surface, leaving behind the salt, explains Hu...
However, over time salt can build up on this evaporative surface, gradually degrading performance until it is removed...
Hu and his colleagues minimized the need for this maintenance with a device made out of basswood that exploits the wood's natural structure of the micron-wide channels that carry water and nutrients up the tree.
The researchers supplement these natural channels by drilling a second array of millimeter-wide channels through a thin cross-section of the wood, says Yudi Kuang, a visiting scholar and lead author on the paper. The investigators then briefly expose the top surface to high heat, which carbonizes the surface for greater solar absorption.
In operation, as the device absorbs solar energy, it draws up salty water through the wood's natural micron-wide channels.
The evaporator approach also is effective in other types of wood with similar natural channels. The researchers now are optimizing their system for higher efficiency, lower capital cost, and integration with a steam condenser to complete the desalination cycle.
Hu's lab also recently developed another solar-heated prototype device that takes advantage of carbonized wood's ability to absorb and distribute solar energy—this one created to help clean up spills of hard-to-collect heavy oils. "Our carbonized wood material demonstrates rapid and efficient crude oil absorption, as well as low cost and scalable manufacturing potential," says Kuang, lead author on a paper about the research in Advanced Functional Materials.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Oh my!!!
Goodbye basswood forests.
Uncle Owen called and said that he wants want those vaporators up and running by this afternoon!
“What does God need with a starship?”
“Who runs a moisture farm in the desert?”
Water in the desert can be worth it’s weight in gold
Why not just find a way to catch the condensation from the High Ball glasses of our ‘betters’ in Congress, while they chew the fat at the bar, finding ways to SCREW US, while they await their Prime Rib dinners (on our dime!) to be served?
Problem solved! ;)
*ping*
even before the widespread cultivation of marijuana.
I can bullseye womp rats in my t16, and they’re not much bigger than two meters
- Line 1 to 564,002. You have some phone calls from PETA.
Hey Hu, the Israelis can produce water from air. And they aren’t going to sell it to you, Red Chi.
Ben considering an idea I have on this any picture available ?
Lousy firewood.
Oh my. Scientists discovered that impure water can be distilled into potable water. Even after throwing a block of wood into the water.
Make a solar still. Not for liquor, just for water. Far less stringent requirements for water than corn mash. As pointed out earlier, distilled water is not good to live on. It needs some minerals to make it worthwhile.
As the Good Book says, salt for the savour. Only a little, and make sure it's iodized.
“You are going to have to mineralize the water as you can not drink distilled water very long without leaching out minerals form your body.”
ROTFLOL!
good one!
Thanks fieldmarshaldj.
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