Wars will one day be fought over water and water rights. We need effective solutions to drinking water shortages today.
2006-07-08 08:35:12 · 9 answers · asked by qwerty92844 1 in Environment
The process you describe would not make fresh water it would split water into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
Fresh water is routinely made from sea water but the process is quite expensive and uses a lot of energy.
There are two techniques that are used. The most common is reverse osmosis. In that technique water is pumped to a fairly high pressure and then forced through a filter with extremely tiny holes. Water is a small molecule and can fit thought the holes. Salt dissolved in water forms a complex with several water molecules surrounding it and that complex is too large to fit through the holes and gets filtered out. The pumping of the water is what take the energy in this process. The filters must be very large to make a lot of fresh water and only last a few months so the filter apparatus is expensive to build and maintain.
Distillation is a less common technique to purify water. Water is boiled and the steam is condensed. Boiling only evaporates the water leaving the salt behind so the condensed steam is fresh water. It takes a lot of energy to boil water. Also the boilers need to be made from special materials that can handle hot salt water and the boilers need to be cleaned out often so again the apparatus is expensive to build and maintain.
Solar distillation is another technique that people are starting to look at. Water is not actually boiled but rather just evaporated using heat from the sun. This reduces the energy requirements greatly but it will only work in very sunny areas. Also it would take a very large area of solar collectors to evaporate very much water. The apparatus is probably more expensive than the first two because it would need to be so large, but the energy costs would be very low.
2006-07-08 09:17:25 · answer #1 · answered by Engineer 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is done all the time. The problem is it take a lot of energy. Right now, energy is more expensive than fresh water for most people.
In Saudi Arabia they do get a huge amount of fresh water from processing salt water.
2006-07-08 08:40:32 · answer #2 · answered by Lurker 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Bowl will be one hundred% secure to apply in case you wash it. you should contact the aluminium in case you needed, it really is merely been oxidised by using the oxygen formation and has 'rusted' ie. anodised. organic alumiunm oxidised in AIR - is going gray, in water it has a tendency to bypass somewhat black and patchy (available chlorine an infection). If 'anodised' in an acid answer, many differeny shades ought to correctly be executed...yet many times it really is merely black. in case you want to 'play' with low powered battery (9v / 12v - not a motor vehicle battery) powered electro-plating. Get some previous or damaged GOLD or copper jewelery on one terminal (anode +) and yet another metallic - say metal because the cathode (-) - provide it some hours & you may gold or copper plate.....
2016-11-01 11:13:16 · answer #3 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
On all cruse ships and other areas, people use reverse osmosis. It produces enuff water for 5,000 people. But at the cost of thousands of dollars, the people that need water cannot afford said machine.
2006-07-08 09:38:36 · answer #4 · answered by GEO net Correspondent 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
why do u think there would be wars one day? cos someone wants to be greedy and so wants to have total control over something that the entire planet thrives on. and if something that the entire planet wants, is in the hands of one person, then that person is the president of the world. so no body is willing to go into such a venture since he would loose such a precious advantage of making him more powerful(greediest) in the world. but the wise ones are doing it though.
2006-07-08 08:58:05 · answer #5 · answered by sokopimpim 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The question than becomes what is the bigger picture and what would be more expensive than dying of thirst? Water for every living thing is an absolute necessity. YES? or NO?
2015-04-01 13:39:22 · answer #6 · answered by Frederic 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Wait for fusion reactors, we need an abundance of cheap energy first. Imagine how much more living space we d get if we irrigated the Australian Interior, that s almost the size of the contiguous US.
2015-02-02 02:20:56 · answer #7 · answered by H 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they do convert sea water to fresh water:
2006-07-08 08:38:31 · answer #8 · answered by Michael R 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it is possible but more expensive than other sources of water.
2006-07-08 08:38:13 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋