Desalination

One of every six people in the world today doesn’t have enough safe water to drink. Within 30 years, thirst will spread to three-quarters of the world’s population.

Humans use lots of technologies to make fresh water from salty, but they are expensive, energy-intensive, with environmental issues.
 * evaporating water and condensing it somewhere else, leaving the salt behind,
 * actively pushing saltwater through a semi-permeable membrane, leaving salt on one side and fresh water on the other.

It is estimated that some 30% of the world's irrigated areas suffer from salinity problems and remediation is seen to be very costly.

New advances in energy-efficient desalination technology could help provide clean water to those who need it most. [|How does Nature Make Saltwater Drinkable?] - we can learn from some of these ideas.
 * What's the problem?**
 * **Ask**  - What are some of the ways to remove salt from seawater?
 * **Imagine** - If you could imitate Nature, what would you do?
 * **Plan, Create** - What would you need to build your idea? Are the items you need available now?
 * **Improve** - What would be needed to make one of the existing desalination processes more efficient and cost effective?


 * That's engineering**
 * water pump - to transport water from source to desalination facility, and for fresh water distribution - pumping capacity necessary to move the volume of water being processed based on distance and change in elevation.
 * [|surface tension] - many desalination units rely on surface tension. Sea water evaporates in a closed container, the salt is left behind. The fresh water condenses, and can be drained off thanks to surface tension.

> evaporation, condensation, semi-permeable, membrane, osmosis
 * Engineering ideas**

Challenges for you to work on...
 * Do It**
 * Create a [|desalinization plant] - construct a "solar still" which uses heat from the sun to run a distillation process to cause dew to form on something like plastic sheeting.


 * News, updates**


 * Learn more...**

..r1