4. SOLAR-POWERED DESALINATION FOR INDIAN VILLAGES

摘要

One of the biggest challenges the developing world faces today is the availability of clean drinking water. About 16% of the world's population can be found in India, and only 4% of the world's water resources, according to the UNICEF. In a country such as India, about 60% of the available water is salty, and therefore undrinkable. Even though these underground sources of water are relatively cleaner than surface water, they are brackish due to the presence of a significant amount of dissolved solids. The lack of drinking water is exacerbated by the fact that a large part of the country is rural and off-grid, making it difficult to desalinate the water using reverse-osmosis (RO).