Posts Tagged ‘energy sources’
Pentagon weapons-maker finds method for cheap, clean water | Reuters
Pentagon weapons-maker finds method for cheap, clean water | Reuters.
By David Alexander
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A defense contractor better known for building jet fighters and lethal missiles says it has found a way to slash the amount of energy needed to remove salt from seawater, potentially making it vastly cheaper to produce clean water at a time when scarcity has become a global security issue.
The process, officials and engineers at Lockheed Martin Corp say, would enable filter manufacturers to produce thin carbon membranes with regular holes about a nanometer in size that are large enough to allow water to pass through but small enough to block the molecules of salt in seawater. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Because the sheets of pure carbon known as graphene are so thin – just one atom in thickness – it takes much less energy to push the seawater through the filter with the force required to separate the salt from the water, they said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osmotic_power
http://www.statkraft.com/energy-sources/osmotic-power/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130228093509.htm
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