Water scarcity is a real global issue and it’s infecting more and more people every day.
71% of Our planet consist of water but only 0.3% of it, is drinkable.
Around 1.42 billion people are living in areas where they should struggle to find water every day.
With the rapid growth of population, climate change and many more environmental problems around the world, it’s not difficult to see that more nations will face water scarcity in close future.
Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh
Being able to desalinate sea water (turning undrinkable sea water into fresh drinkable water) has been the main goal of many water poor countries around the world.
for example, In early 2017, Saudi Arabia invested $7.2 Billion in construction of its desalination planet called al-jubail.
But desalination plants are not as efficient as they should.
The main problem of desalination planets is that they consume a lot of electricity to desalinate water.
For a long time – Being able to turn sea water into fresh drinkable water without consuming a lot of energy, has been the main purpose of many scientists around the world.
Yi Zheng An associate professor of Northeastern University, developed a new technic to desalinate sea water without using any kind of electricity.
Photo by Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
By hitting the Manure up to 3000 Fahrenheit and killing all the bacteria inside, the manure transformed to carbon powder, which yi zheng and his team were able to turn it to a foam filter which floats on the surface of water and could filter out the salt of sea water (while it turns to steam by sunlight).
By using manure as filter and sunlight as process activator – scientists were able to develop a true “eco-friendly” way for desalination.
“The materials we use are totally natural, sustainable” Zheng said
He also added “This natural material performs well, and is low-cost, easy to obtain, and easy to manufacture.”
Sources:
News.northeastern.edu
daily mail
Main Photo: Alyssa Stone/Northeastern University
Looking back on my two decades in this field, I’m still as committed as ever to telling important stories and getting people to care about the Earth. Outside of writing, I work with Environmental groups that are trying to make things better for the environment and have a positive impact.
