I've wondered why desal hasn't also paired up with ocean mineral extraction. It seems like the two would go well together.
Even when talking about RO, you'd think diverting all or part of the brine water for evaporation would reduce the cost of extraction. You'd have water with more concentrated minerals which would give you a higher yield per evaporation cycle.
Also, it'd be nice if we could bring back magnesium extraction from ocean water.
No critical thinking at all in this article. So you take out the water and 50% of the lithium. You still haven't addressed what happens to the remaining NaCl, which was the main headline.
The headline should be "thing can extract lithium from sea water at 50% efficiency. It also produces potable water."
Solar desalination looks pretty good in terms of efficiency. The problem is that the solar energy must now be collected at the shoreline. This means that a lot of coastal real estate gets turned into a desalination plant. Alternatively, you transport the water, but pumping seawater requires corrosion and fouling resistant materials throughout the system.
I've wondered why desal hasn't also paired up with ocean mineral extraction. It seems like the two would go well together.
Even when talking about RO, you'd think diverting all or part of the brine water for evaporation would reduce the cost of extraction. You'd have water with more concentrated minerals which would give you a higher yield per evaporation cycle.
Also, it'd be nice if we could bring back magnesium extraction from ocean water.
Would like to see investment into removing dissolved co2, bicarbonate ion from the ocean as well.
What ever happened to that company that was going to extract materials for concrete from seawater?
No critical thinking at all in this article. So you take out the water and 50% of the lithium. You still haven't addressed what happens to the remaining NaCl, which was the main headline.
The headline should be "thing can extract lithium from sea water at 50% efficiency. It also produces potable water."
I wonder what can have better potential efficiency, a classic solar panel and an electric boiler/dryer, or these devices?
Fundamentally, a direct device has fewer transformation losses.
Solar desalination looks pretty good in terms of efficiency. The problem is that the solar energy must now be collected at the shoreline. This means that a lot of coastal real estate gets turned into a desalination plant. Alternatively, you transport the water, but pumping seawater requires corrosion and fouling resistant materials throughout the system.
wouldnt something like UPVC/PVC/PEX not be good'nuff?
That is assuming your boiler uses resistive heating to generate heat and not heat pumps to move heat.
Why would you waste sunlight on light->electricity->heat conversion?
Just do direct evaporation like it's been done for thousands of years. If you don't like brine, leave it to dry out too.
If there is not enough sunlight, use direct nuclear heat.
Uranium is only 8 parts per billion so you may have some trouble sustaining a critical reaction with nuclear heat alone :)