Desalination: Easing the burden of thirst

              To sustain a growing population, research is bent on developing a solution to these issues. Ground water drilling and recycling of wastewater are examples of temporary solutions. Among these solutions is desalination. Desalination is the process of forcing salted water through a membrane by reverse osmosis, separating freshwater from impurities. An approach to reduce cost is substituting the primary material used in the constructing membrane with a relatively inexpensive material called polyamide. To avoid degeneration, the extraction of chlorine becomes an additional step in the desalination process. However, when chlorine is absent, microbes can occur and obstruct the flow of water.

             A possible solution is to replace polyamide with graphene oxide. The compound graphene has a structure similar to the honeycomb. It is predicted that this material will be more permeable to water and therefore reduce the pressure required to dictate the flow of water. Further research leans toward alternative materials like carbon nanotubes as the membrane. The underlying issue for integrating such findings is cost. The application of such processes must be considered on a global level.

               To counter such challenge, Jia Zhu of Nanjing University in China and colleagues worked on alternative sources of energy, such as the sun. Yet depending on direct contact alone from the sun is limiting. Research is looking into the use of absorbable materials to increase the amount of energy from sunlight. In short, the high energy consumption required for desalination often renders it a last resort. However, the growing urge to subsidize water scarcity on a global level leaves room for possible advancement and increasing innovation in the desalination process.