Comments on: Fast, cheap water desalination using graphene

By: Ken Arnold

Ken Arnold — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 17:26:15 +0000

That would be easy with a “Water Ram”. Pump it’s operated buy moving water and used mostly in Rivers/Streams

simple version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlMp3fvfHx0

By: Gergana Rusenova

Gergana Rusenova — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:32:46 +0000

Hi!
My name is Gergana Rusenova, I`m an architecture student at the University of Stuttgart, Germany. Your idea inspired me and my colleague Desislava Angelova – we want to take part in the World Scyscraper Competiton, working on the topic “Desalination of seawater” . We were just wondering if it`s possible in your oppinion to use your new approach to water desalination in a vertical direction, as we`re required to design a skyscraper? We`d like to combine a reasonable (and cheap) method for desalination and renewable energies, in order to produce fresh water without causing increase in CO2 emissions. As we`re only at the beginning of our research, we`d like to know what`s your oppinion about the project and our idea in generall?
Thank you! I hope this layman-question is not too unprofessional for you..

By: Dan Robinson

Dan Robinson — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 20:28:53 +0000

All of these ideas of course make sense. But I constantly wonder why, or if, an even more efficient “electrostatic filter” isn’t possible, treating salt ions as electrically charged particles in a relatively unionized medium. I came up with a design for this years ago, but found difficulties with building it on a very low budget. Then I decided that if we solve just one environmental problem, it will just be an excuse to continue expanding the population until we have a lot more problems (as we seem to continue to do) so my interests went elsewhere. I’ve pretty well disproven the one valid argument against it, that charged particles would coat insulation of oppositely-charged conductors and cancel the charges. (In the process of testing this, I also started on the road to a simple and apparently unique method of generating high voltage electric power from wave action or otherwise.) If you want more details, please write to danrob at efn dot org.

By: Jessee McBroom

Jessee McBroom — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 16:20:34 +0000

This is another piece of excellent work by MIT. This looks very promising. I’m sure the worlds populations well benefit from this work. My sincere thanks to the crew at MIT that produced this membrane model .

By: asiwel

asiwel — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:03:31 +0000

There are many exciting advances being made in desalination, but somehow this does not yet quite seem to be one of them. To say that “MIT researchers have invented a new kind of filtration material for desalination” and then to read further and find out this is still only a computer simulation is promising but disappointing. That simply is not an “invention” at all … at least not yet. But perhaps they have developed prototypes .. the article seems to imply this; prototypes that can be optimized through simulation. I hope so.

By: aus

aus — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 02:06:46 +0000

Foye, I’m not sure about the engineering issues, but from what I remember of the basics of climate science in college, messing with the humidity in one region could affect climate in other regions. Remember the Earth’s weather is an interconnected system, so you could end up with unexpected and unwanted results elsewhere.

Perhaps a meteorologist would be able to predict what changes would occur.

By: Louis Parsons

Louis Parsons — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 22:55:48 +0000

This is the type of thing that matters now!

I wish Grossman had a billion dollars to work with.

By: David U

David U — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 19:01:23 +0000

Yes, Dean Kamen invented the SlingShot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOQbVD7F1f4

I believe CocaCola bought a few hundred SlingShots and is trying them out in Africa.

By: Foye Lowe

Foye Lowe — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:19:28 +0000

In the meanwhile, non-engineer that I am, I’ve wondered about the feasibility of using the energy of ocean wave action to pump salt water to far-inland evaporation ponds, so at least there would be water vapor in arid regions. Is such a low-tech project at all practical?

By: Tom Moriarty

Tom Moriarty — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:10:32 +0000

Ayaz:

A solution to your problem may be to consider an OTEC solution for Pate island. The requirement for OTEC is a 20-25 C temperature differential between the surface temperature and and the water temperature at 1000M.
The OTEC process is used to create electricty and one of the by products is millions of gallons of fresh water. Westinghouse has plans for 2 50Mw pilot plan and there is a plan for a plant in Bernmuda. There s a pilot plant in Hawaii.

Tom Moriarty

By: Editor

Editor — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:35:18 +0000

“When desalinization plants can be grown like green plants…”: interesting idea, and possibly feasible. There is research at Stanford on Chemical Self Assembly of Graphene Sheets and the news item mentions the concept of self-assembling systems for punching precise one-nanometer holes.

Submitted by Gordon Russell at http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-cambridge-project-for-existential-risk on 2012/06/29 at 3:09 pm:

I do beleive that ” the extreme effects of anthropogenic climate change” can be reversed by nanotechnology. When self-assembling photovoltaic carbon nanocells can take carbon out the atmosphere to grow into carbon nanotubes, graphene, buckminsterfullerene, fiberdiamond and any other number of useful carbon compounds, then all those extreme effects will be reversed.

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:01:02 +0000

I am so glad that Ayaz Manji found this newsletter. This is why I am always posting comments about self-assembling photo-voltaic carbon nanocells that take carbon dioxide out of the air and weave it into carbon nanotubes and graphene.

When desalinization plants can be grown like green plants, this great global problem of fresh water scarcity will be solved. When this happens the Sahara will be green again, there will be no more famine in Ethiopia, and the islanders of Pate will have abundant fresh water.

By: gorazd

gorazd — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 14:19:24 +0000

Bri, are you thinking about Dean Kamen’s Slingshot?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingshot_(water_vapor_distillation_system)

I am really not sure this is close to being in production. Would be great though… If… claims are true.

By: Bri

Bri — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:17:59 +0000

In Peter diamandis’s book Abundance, he cites another” suitcase” size tech. I think it is ready to go, were as this tech isn’t even in production yet.

By: Editor

Editor — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 12:06:05 +0000

Hi, Ayaz. Sure, I’ll send you an email. I hope you’ll let us know how it works out.

By: Ayaz Manjia

Ayaz Manjia — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 10:56:27 +0000

Dear Sir/Madam,

My name is Ayaz Manji and I am the Water and Sanitation Advisor at the Kenya Red Cross Society. I have read this bulletin of using Graphene for Water Desalination with great interest. In my country we have huge water scarcity and at the costal lands, we have largely salt water deposits in ground and surface water sources. I have personally tried to setup desalination plants on an Island called Pate where the residents have no choice but to get water by boat as there are no fresh water sources on this island. The desalination plants (as correctly reported in this bulletin) require a lot of energy and high maintenance which also limited the amount of fresh water we could access from them. This lead to the designated water being even higher in cost than boated water and also there were production limitations.

To date I am scouting the globe for a solution for this very vulnerable population and I was very excited to read this publication.

Would it be possible for you to connect me with the researcher from MIT who is championing this grapheme as I would like to explore the possibility of setting up such a unit in Kenya and they could possibly get some benefit from the research they may be able to carry out here.

Kind Regards,

Ayaz Manji