Battery + drinking water from ... sea water

Professor of Mechanics and Engineering, University of Illinois, Kyle Smith (Kyle Smith) and graduate student Rylan Dmello (Rylan Dmello) published their studies on obtaining electricity and fresh water in the process of sodium battery.

The researchers were inspired by sodium-ion batteries that contain salt water. In these devices there are two compartments with electrodes, separated by a separator through which ions can move. When the battery is discharged, sodium and chloride ions — two elements of salt — stretch to one compartment, leaving the desalinated water in the other.
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In a normal battery, the ions diffuse back when the current flows in the other direction. Researchers at the University of Illinois have found a way to keep salt separate from water:

“In a conventional battery, the separator allows the salt to diffuse from the positive electrode to the negative one,” explains Smith. “This limits the amount of salt that can be distinguished. We put a membrane that blocks sodium between two electrodes, so we can hold it from the part where the water is. ”

“We are developing a device that will use materials in batteries to bring salt out of water with as little energy as possible,” said Smith.


The technology is interesting, since at the current time reverse osmosis is most often used (= an expensive and energy-intensive process), although research has not yet reached the stage of practical experiments with sea water. Real impurities and pollution are also not taken into account.

Source jes.ecsdl.org/content/163/3/A530

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