The device that turns seawater into drinking water exceeds WHO standards

Massachusetts Institute of Technology – USA (MIT) has just launched a new device that turns seawater into pure drinking water without needing to be filtered.

Size device This is only the size of a suitcase, using a smaller amount of electricity than a smartphone charger. In particular, it can draw power from a portable solar cell in the absence of a power storage battery pack. This device can produce 300 ml of drinking water per hour with a consumption of 20 Wh of electricity per liter.

Instead of filtering or distilling water, the device uses an MIT-designed technology called “Ion Focused Polarization” (ICP).

Device that turns seawater into drinking water without filtration by the MIT team. Photo: MIT

As for the operating process, the researchers pumped seawater through a narrow channel between two layers of electrically charged membranes. When water flows through the electric field between these two membranes, particles such as salt molecules, viruses and bacteria are pushed into the auxiliary water channel to be discharged.

At this time, the main water channel has been purified and relatively desalinated, but may still contain some salt ions that cannot be used immediately. Therefore, the prefiltered water will continue to flow through an electrical dialysis module. This step helps to remove the last remaining salt. Finally, purified water will come out from the device’s nozzle, which is above the World Health Organization (WHO) drinking water standard.

The team, led by Professor Jongyoon Han, says the system is a bit complicated due to the integration of the multi-stage process. First, water flows through a series of 6 ICP modules, then through 3 other modules, and then to the electrodialysis module.

However, the team is working on improvements to increase the capacity of the device that turns seawater into pure water without filtration.