From Cape Town to Tehran to Lima to Phoenix, Dozens of cities It has witnessed all over the world a shortage of water in recent times. In the next five years, the world’s demand for fresh water can greatly exceed the offer, according to the expectations of the United Nations. Now many companies move to an unexpected source of solution: below the ocean.
It is called underneath water desalination, and the idea is to remove salt from water in the depths of the sea. If it succeeds widely, technology can significantly reduce the problems of access to water in the world.
The costs and energy requirements prevented water desalination from prevailing in most of the world. Early water desalination ensures that sea water boiling and steam intensification, a purely thermal method that uses a lot of energy. This approach was later replaced with a multi -stage flash distillation, where the temperature and pressure “flash” salt water for steam. In the past 25 years, the reverse osmosis has become more common – it uses high pressure to push sea water through a membrane with very small holes so that only the water molecules are pressed through it.
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The reverse osmosis is more efficient than distillation, but it takes a lot of energy to pressure millions of gallons of sea water and transport it through filters. What if we can let this movement occur naturally by harnessing pressure on hundreds of meters under the water?
This is the idea behind the surface water desalination. The reverse osmosis pods are immersed to the depths of about 500 meters (1600 feet), where the massive hydrostatic pressure lifted the heavy lifting to separate the water from the salt. Then the pure water is pumped to the beach. Farlen as it might seem, there are already multiple preliminary models; Companies behind them aim to take a widely cheap water desalination of Pipe Dream to reality.
One of these companies is based in Oslo FLOCEAN. Its founder and executive, Alexander Fujlisang, says there is no revolutionary new technology behind his work,; It is “a pump under the surface of the sea in the first place intelligently associated with membrane technology and the current filter,” he says. What is new is energy-saving-FLOCEAN uses energy less than 40 to 50 percent of traditional plants-and normative systems that can be deployed in many deep sites without dedicated engineering.
The sea floor has other benefits, too. This region contains fewer bacteria and other microorganisms compared to shallow depths, and there is a little local contrast in temperature or pressure. “The deep sea is really predictable,” says Fuglessang. “It is the same 365 days a year.” This is not the case in wild plants, which must deal with algae flowers, running river flow, storms and changes in seasonal temperatures. In addition, less chemical treatment of water is needed on depth, and because all the equipment is underwater, there is no controversy “in the backyard” about a large ugly infrastructure mode near the seashore.
Despite its advantages on wild plants, undergraduate water desalination has several obstacles to get rid of them before scaling to commercial levels. For beginners, it is still expensive. Earth water desalination is more expensive several times than withdrawing water from groundwater or lakes, even in Giga factories in the Middle East that benefit from abundant solar energy and large size economies. Even if sea technology reduces the cost of land desalination by land by 40 percent, it will remain an expensive method for obtaining drinking water.
He says: “We need to remember that as soon as the water is decomposed, it is still to be pumped from depths of up to 600 meters,” he says. Nadel HillelThe founding director of the New York University Research Center in Abu Dhabi, who studied water treatment engineering for more than 30 years. “Early experimental tests show the promise, but technology has not yet been proven.”
Renewable energy at affordable prices will make desalination under sea water more vibrant. Technology improvements will also help. The Hillel Research Group, for example, develops the opposite supplier osmosis membranes that keep itself clean by repelling salt ions and impurities. They will extend the maintenance periods, which Fuglessang may range from two to three years with the existing membranes.
Although supporters of this technology say it will not have a significant impact on the surface of life, others urge more research to measure their impact on marine ecosystems. Many living organisms say at a depth of 500 meters. ” Adina AdinaProfessor of the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The twilight area – which extends from 200 to 1000 meters below the surface – is not only home to living organisms such as whales, hills and hideon. “It is very important for many ocean operations such as carbon cycle and bicycle riding,” says Bitan. Companies will need to ensure that their consumption of water and salty products do not harm marine life or significantly change these operations.
Looking at the required depths, desalination under the surface of the sea will not work on any seashore location. “Many coastal cities are located on wide continental shelves, which means deep water abroad,” says Hille. The coast of sharp drop -down is perfect because shallow shelves require long pipelines, which increases capital and operational costs.
FugLesang is not concerned about technical or engineering obstacles; He says the biggest challenge in industry is the alignment of customers, governments and financial partners. FLOCEAN will work on what will be the first surface -to -surface water decomposition factory in the world, off the Norway coast, and has a contract to start providing water for an industrial facility in 2026. The Netherlands is based. Water She also got her first industrial agent, with Plans to start Building a factory in Al Qaeda Bay in the Red Sea later this year, based in the Gulf region. Ocenwell The initial model is tested near Los Angeles.
Long -term government contracts are likely to be needed to take off under the sea desalination, and may be far -fetched. “The sub -water structure industry is very conservative,” Fugless
Hillel says he believes that desalination under the surface of the sea can turn into parking and supply water in the entire cities. But he adds, “Reaching the real domain of the city will take time, perceived for one or more contracts.”