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.
