“Inspired by nature.” Researchers at an Emirati university invent a device that produces fresh water from the sea

A research team at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates has developed a device to generate and crystallize steam from sunlight. It produces fresh water from seawater and collects salt without secreting brine solutions.

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The device developed by the research team simulates the natural transpiration process of corm plants (the release of water in the form of steam from the parts of the plant exposed to the air, especially the leaves). The device can also be used directly to treat salt solutions with zero liquid secretions, which makes dry salt the only side product. It also does not need fossil fuels to provide energy.

Professor at Khalifa University, Tejun Zhang, explained, “The research team was inspired by nature and the idea of ​​innovation to develop an efficient and scalable solution that can contribute to addressing the problem of water scarcity globally, while at the same time reducing the environmental impact to the minimum possible, and extracting Valuable metals.

Zhang said that the team discovered that "the performance of steam generators using solar energy declines due to the loss of the ability to absorb light, not due to the natural blockage of pores by salt. In addition to the team's discovery that the presence of salt can actually improve the evaporation process, even in the absence of light," he noted. "These results reached by the team contribute to paving the way for the efficient use of solar energy and the production of fresh water."

The university professor explained, “The device mimics the properties of salt-tolerant plants, as the device uses a corrosion-resistant, porous absorbent stem, and multi-layered leaves consisting of nano-structured networks of titanium, which are characterized by their extreme water tolerance and low cost, to form a salt resource due to the capillary action.” This allows the continuous generation of steam and passive collection of salt, and the salt is deposited in the water at the edges during the evaporation processes that take place during the daylight hours, which leads to the formation of a porous spot.” He pointed out that “at nighttime, Earth’s gravity takes its course, causing the salt spots to separate.” When the leaves get wet again with salt water, these porous salt spots also improve the performance of evaporation processes.”