Nanopore Desalination

摘要

Amore efficient process to remove salt from seawater would help solve one of the world's most troubling problems: limited access to clean water. Most commercial desalination is based on reverse osmosis, in which pressure differences drive water through a membrane that is impermeable to salt. But the process is energy-intensive (because of the power needed to create the pressure gradient) and slow. MIT researchers led by David Cohen-Tanugi and Jeffrey C. Grossman envision an alternative based on graphene dotted with holes too small for salt to pass through.