Do you know, the heat that your air conditioning system is releasing can be used to power a desalination system?! It may surprise you, but not the New Mexico State University engineers.
Yes, they have developed a prototype water desalination system that needs energy as low as what your air conditioning releases to power it!
Not just that! It can also convert saltwater to pure drinking water on a round-the-clock basis at a very low cost – an ideal mechanism for poor countries starving of clean water.
The world with extensive brackish groundwater resources and struggling for suitable drinking water, especially that in the developing or poorer nations could now easily and cheaply tap and purify it.
This new system uses much less energy in comparison to the traditional desalination processes like reverse osmosis and electro-dialysis, which consume significant amounts of energy.
Since, it needs a very little energy for running — with its vacuum trick — boiling of water like normal distillation is not needed. This saves energy in return.
In addition, it can use low-grade heat like solar energy or waste heat from a diesel engine or some other source of waste heat.
Image Credit