Comment on Desalination system could produce freshwater that is cheaper than tap water

• assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s unfortunately not a profitability issue, at least not necessarily. I wish that it was, because then all you need is investors like silicon valley and you can run at a loss.

  What the researchers have created here is a bench top device. It needs to be scaled up for widespread commercial use, and that’s where things get difficult. Scale up is one of the things my field does, although I don’t have personal experience with it. Scale up is where a lot of projects die because of new issues developing.

  This device is relying on flow patterns and convection currents. That gives me some concern actually, because these patterns can change a lot with larger vessels. A common industry problem with fluid flow in larger tanks is that you’ll get “dead zones”. The internal flow dynamics are such that some parts of the vessel see no actual flow, and it’s just stagnant. That’s a big problem when you’re relying on flow to keep your entire tank cool or to carry out precipitated salts.

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  • MaroonMage@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Cool insight - thanks!

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    • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      You’re welcome. One of the disappointing things I realized as I learned more in college wasn’t that we had easy solutions that were being suppressed by the rich, but really difficult solutions that were being discouraged by the rich.

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