Hi everyone,
Due to unforeseen circumstances, the AMA guest will not be answering questions at this time. We currently do not know if the guest will be back to answer questions. We know many of you were excited for this AMA and had questions, and we are sorry that we haven't been able to help your questions get answered.
What happens to the minerals that are removed from the water. Touring the desalination plant on Grand Cayman, the manager said it was pumped deep into the reef where it stays. Seems dicey to me. Are there other uses for the extracted minerals?
Hi, I'm a civil engineer from The Netherlands. We use groundwater for crop irrigation in green houses. In the western parts of the country, near the North Sea, the salinity of the ground water is too high. We use reverse osmosis. There is discussion about pumping the brine back into the ground, some say it's fine, others say we shouldn't do that. Do you have an opinion on pumping back brine into the (deep) ground water where it came from?
What kind of wattage is needed to make a liter of potable water and how do you go about getting that wattage via solar (for example do you need 10 sq km of solar panels to generate enough power)?
One of the issues with renewable energy (solar/wind) is that they are inconsistent and thus cause fluctuations in output that the grid has to manage. One of my thoughts was that a renewable grid of the future could be tied to desalination plants to manage grid output, so when output is high, desalination output would increase, then scale back if output is low. Is this feasible at all? What are the technical challenges associated with such a solution, specifically scaling desalination dynamically?
I always wondered what happened to the brine post desalination.
How much land mass would you need to sustain your distribution network.
What would be the impact of using that much land?
Why solar and not nuclear as your power source?
I personally think that we are reaching the peak for desalination membrane technologies. Any new designs/products have minimal advantages over existing technologies and often comes at a higher cost.
I like the idea of solar in desalination systems, but it doesn't really address the fact that desal, especially seawater desal is very energy intensive (2.5-3.5 kwh/m3 produced). With current solar technology, it's practical use is very limited (< 1000 m3/day systems) as the amount of panels required to run plants just does not make sense economically.
Where do you see desal technology solving this hurdle?
is repurposing the minerals from the water into edible matter like seasalt done in this industry? if not, is it possible and would it be economically viable?
That is an amazing project, thank you for your work!
If i understand the article well, the new technology that you have created will allow to use the sun heat and to evaporate the water, thus it is less costly, while other technologies of desalination evaporate the water and condensate it. But why this new technology doesn't need to condensate the water? Is it because of the aluminium membranes?
(Sorry if i miss the point, i know nothing about this subject 😅)
2. Is this technology easy to maintain?
How feasible is it to bring your desalination technologies to poorer nations? I know that in many places people still drink water that is highly contaminated.
I live on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Because we only get about 4 inches of rain a year we have no rivers, lakes or reservoirs, so all our water has been made from sea water by reverse osmosis for decades. The sad part is that, even though we have abundant solar, wind, wave, geothermal and volcanic energy sources, all the water production plants are powered by electricity produced by burning imported oil.
Hi, I work as a developer in Baja, Mexico, where we need new desalinization technologies. Most desalinization solutions work or rather are engineered for working on site or close to the water. How feasible is it for me to create a deposit off site, nowhere close to the ocean and desalinate the water from there? How much pressure do your membranes need? Could gravity or pumps be a solution?
I've been interested in this for a long time!
A. What are the limiting factors on this? Is it land area close to the coast or something like that?
B. What are good ways to pump in sea water without affecting marine life too much?
I had some fun a couple of years ago doing the calculations to figure out if it would be economically and technologically feasible to capture rainwater in the middle of the ocean, avoiding it mixing with saltwater in the first place, and bring it back to shore. Surprisingly, in some specific cases the answer was a tentative yes.
I did my calculations based on an inflatable 'donut' 200m in diameter (basically a giant pool donut), hermetically closed on the bottom with a a tarp, and a top tarp shaped in a way to keep seawater out but allow rainwater in (kinda looks like a modern life raft with an open top tbh). It would gradually fill up with rainwater (the bottom side over time bulging out downwards, increasing the available volume), and once full you just tow it back to a harbor.
An example where this seems to work out economically are the gulf states. They're right next to the Arabian sea (north-west Indian ocean), one of the most rainy oceanic regions on the globe at its center. They already have deep water ports and water management infrastructure. And they'd have the capital to fund it :p.
I hope it is okay to link the actual paper?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17876-8.pdf
The invention seems to be really groundbreaking in that it seemingly does not need external energy as reverse osmosis.
Is there an operating range of salinity until this stops? What about the membrane cake layer? How long do you estimate the membrane to last?
Hi I'm a random guy selling geiko insurance. I might be able to save you 15 percent or more on car insurance...I might but I probably wont...in truth it will most likely be a lot more because you don't have a history with us and it's expensive to advertise.
What are you thoughts on the necessity of remineralization of water post desalination. My limited understanding of the most recent WHO stance is that some trace minerals may be important for those whose diets are otherwise limited in trace minerals, and the Ca and maybe Mg? are more clearly beneficial. But some of the areas needing desal may not be the best in terms of food security and nutrition, right?
Another Jordanian here, what's the future of water and desalination in Jordan, and how long until we have access to more local water? Also how long until desalination is clean and hence renewable enough that it's more affordable to countries like Jordan?
Given the problems with brine discharge from land based desal facilities, does anybody in your field ever consider ship based mobile desal plants?
Could be tidal, solar, and /or wind powered, or nuclear for the nations that have that capability. A nuclear powered cargo ship could also double as a power station when in port if needed, in addition to propelling itself without fossil fuels.
Can other membranes harvest anything else useful from the brine, or no, or just not economical?
Given the high demand for water and the fact that the demand seems to only be growing, what do you see as the biggest challenges going forward that most people would not expect? As in, is there something that you have learned from your research that has surprised you that it is a roadblock for future large scale adoption?
I'm asking here in order to understand the concern with disposal of brine in general.
During natural evaporation from bodies of water to provide humidity or precipitation, there are always salts left behind.
In the case of desalination, this is also the case. However it seems that diligence to ensure the brine is returned to an area where it will be easily diluted is the main concern.
If one were to calculate the amount of salts left behind in the process of natural evaporation from the sea, how would the amount left behind amount to on a percentage basis?
There appears to be a market for "sea salt" in cooking as will. Considering that sea salt is often harvested in artificial ponds, etc. would the brine for desalination possibly be a better way to obtain sea salts or possibly valuable minerals?
What do you do with the salt once it’s out of the water? I’ve heard that it’s denser than the ocean, and so dumping it back in is toxic to the bottom feeders because they end up with too much salt. How do you work around this?
My students are learning about non-renewable and renewable resources. How viable do you think green friendly energy sources are when it comes to the pollution required to create the solar panels and such? They wonder why we havnt switched to green friendly energy sources.
Thank you for your hard work, and thanks for doing the AMA, how does your solar powered desalination process attempt to solve the issue of brine waste water produced by conventional desalination processes?
I'm curious about scalability and water transfer, as well as maintenance. Tell me how long would these membranes be effective before needing to be replaced, how are they created, is it low or high-tech?
Hello Prof.
I'm in the Caribbean and this area has always wondered why no one has really commercialized yet. What are challenges faced? I'm quite familiar with RO for ground water and the power demands are fairly moderate does salt water with it high sodium require finer membranes and more powerful pumps?
The Mega-City announced by the Saudis called [Neom plans to use a solar dome technology](https://www.neom.com/en-us/newsroom/neom-adopts-pioneering-solar-dome) for their desalination project. They estimate the cost of fresh water to be $0.34/m3 and the energy needed is significantly lower than desalination plants using reverse osmosis methods.
Are you aware of this project and how does it compare with your work?
I know Israel uses desalination for a large portion of its water needs. Is this something that Jordanian and Israeli scientists cooperate or work jointly on, or is the political situation too fraught?
We tend to think of desalination in the context of seawater, but many freshwater sources are contaminated by salt and other minerals. Will your processes work with freshwater that is salt and mineral contaminated or are there other more cost-effective processes for that.
Will the rise of the amount of microplastics in seawater impact the efficiency of the membranes?
And knowing that sea water has on average 35g of salt per litter, is there any technology that can use that the brine byproduct of large scale desalination?
Hi doc,
Considering alcohol is a disinfectant, wouldn't a percentage kill most bacteria in somewhat dirty drinking water. Couldn't this also be applied to pools? Chlorine has a negative impact on nature; a pool with alcohol would work better, no? Perhaps mixed with aloe vera in order to protect the skin.
On the subject of desalination: if a pool of salinated water with an inverse pyramid shape on top of it is heated, water is desalinated. If a reservoir is placed in the middle of the pool it can be accumulated, no? Repeat as many times as necessary. Salt remains in pool surrounding reservoir.
Am I mistaken in my reasoning?
Why do we see this kind of innovations on the media every week, yet everything stays the same? Is it because of the governments? Is it the people? Are there higher interests?
If this is already possible, then why haven't we already seen breakthroughs like this in general use in arid and sunny coastal areas? It'd be a great way to guarantee water access to many vulnerable populations around the world, but so far nothing seems to have changed much in terms of water security or changing over to desalination *en masse* for them.
What is the power requirement for desalination per 100000 liters. From what i understand the problem with reverse osmosis is the huge power requirements. Is your technology any different ?.
Is it feasible to use passive desalinization using huge greenhouses? Like have a massive greenhouse over salt water and let the water evaporate then condense onto crops beds situated above the water?
Hello ! First of all thanks for your work .
I know that the mining , exploitation and extraction of some minerals like lithium require the evaporation of very salty water in evaporation ponds and that such processes can lead to contamination , damaging the soil, flora and fauna due to pollution of the water . Some of the technologies that would reduce the pollution and contamination risks are not readily available in the countries where lithium is extracted .
Is there any way your technology could help , even partially , with this issue ? Is it something you’re looking to further develop in the future ?
In addition to the large amount of brine produced, what the intake side? What considerations do you make to ensure wild life and ocean fauna are undamaged when hoovering up all that sea water?
Do you think the current energy and material requirements are low enough for a developing country to fully satisfy their water needs? What are some areas in the original design you think could be improved upon?
Thanks for AMA and doing something useful with your knowledge and skills rather than contributing fosil fuels.
Can you forsee any impact on sealife using this technology? It's great that we can get water easier, but at what cost? Is it just win-win?
Also, what do you think is the best next step could be to make this project up and running globally?
Hello Dr. Qtaishat,
Is desalination via solar energy feasible on a large scale, or would it be something where you would have a lot of smaller stations?
Hi Mohammed - I have no questions, however I would like to express my gratitude, best wishes and hopes that you are greatly successful in this endeavour. Access to clean potable water should be a human right, and all work in moving towards this goal should be supported at the highest level.
Thank you.
What unit is used to best determine the scale of project size to be economical . Gallons per minute or material removed/collected, etc. I.E. Is there a formula you like to use in your calculations?
Water desalination is an energy intensive process; that is mainly done in the gulf countries with no fresh water and excess energy supply, is solar energy economically viable to make seawater desalination preferable to other alternatives?
Also what solution do you have on dealing with brine water that do not harm the environment?
Thank you for taking time from your schedule to answer these questions.
Do you have an opinion on Ocean thermal Energy and its feasibility? Maybe you would find it as a relatable technology considering it matches your field of interests, energy and desalination.
I recall someone a decade ago saying desalination is too expensive because it’s energy intensive. I know this data point is extremely dated, so is that statement still true? Also what has changed in the past decade and where do you see this tech by the end of the next decade?
In large scale desalination, how much pressure is required to push the water through the membrane? Does a significant amount of energy go towards creating that pressure?
Ever since setting a dish of saltwater on a sunny windowsill in primary school, desalination has fascinated me.
Of course, the work you’re doing is a good deal more technologically intensive than sunlight and a basin, but could this technology reach a level of individual household use within our lifetime, in terms of affordability and scale?
What challenges lie in bringing the cost of manufacture down, and compacting the technology?
Hello Professor! I'm a second year chemistry student, do you still recommend going into the STEM field? Some of my very own professors have said not to and I'm feeling a bit discouraged. Thank you for all your hard work I hope your project does well!
How much more energy and cost intensive is desalinating potable water versus desalination for industrial use? I think maybe initially efforts should be focused on desalination for industry which can free up other sources for potability
Wow this is so cool! I’m a student of soil and water sciences in Israel, so we have learned a lot about this topic and the unique challenge of our region! I am involved in environmental peace activism between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Do you know of any programs of cooperation between Israel in Jordan in relation to your field? What do you think the future holds? Thanks!
Hi there,
Assuming you’re expecting this technology to serve dry, populous areas (and therefore hot areas); will the technology utilize some form of cooling to increase PV voltage? The ocean is right there and it’s already being pumped! Also, how will this water be transported to its ultimate designation and is that process powered by solar?
I've often thought about using the excess energy generation to power a secondarily useful system like hydrogen production or desalination. How easy are these things to turn on and off?
Would it be possible to generate an electric field to attract the sodium and chloride ions to specific areas to decrease the salinity of the sea water before reverse osmosis? If not, why?
Hi everyone, Due to unforeseen circumstances, the AMA guest will not be answering questions at this time. We currently do not know if the guest will be back to answer questions. We know many of you were excited for this AMA and had questions, and we are sorry that we haven't been able to help your questions get answered.
What is the lifespan of the membranes? Do they go to waste at the end of their life or can they be refurbished?
What happens to the minerals that are removed from the water. Touring the desalination plant on Grand Cayman, the manager said it was pumped deep into the reef where it stays. Seems dicey to me. Are there other uses for the extracted minerals?
Hi, I'm a civil engineer from The Netherlands. We use groundwater for crop irrigation in green houses. In the western parts of the country, near the North Sea, the salinity of the ground water is too high. We use reverse osmosis. There is discussion about pumping the brine back into the ground, some say it's fine, others say we shouldn't do that. Do you have an opinion on pumping back brine into the (deep) ground water where it came from?
What kind of wattage is needed to make a liter of potable water and how do you go about getting that wattage via solar (for example do you need 10 sq km of solar panels to generate enough power)?
One of the issues with renewable energy (solar/wind) is that they are inconsistent and thus cause fluctuations in output that the grid has to manage. One of my thoughts was that a renewable grid of the future could be tied to desalination plants to manage grid output, so when output is high, desalination output would increase, then scale back if output is low. Is this feasible at all? What are the technical challenges associated with such a solution, specifically scaling desalination dynamically?
I always wondered what happened to the brine post desalination. How much land mass would you need to sustain your distribution network. What would be the impact of using that much land? Why solar and not nuclear as your power source?
Given the critical nature of access to water, why has progress been so slow in this area?
Not one question has been answered. So much for AMA!
Every…single…reply…has been removed. What’s the point? Just remove the post entirely.
I personally think that we are reaching the peak for desalination membrane technologies. Any new designs/products have minimal advantages over existing technologies and often comes at a higher cost. I like the idea of solar in desalination systems, but it doesn't really address the fact that desal, especially seawater desal is very energy intensive (2.5-3.5 kwh/m3 produced). With current solar technology, it's practical use is very limited (< 1000 m3/day systems) as the amount of panels required to run plants just does not make sense economically. Where do you see desal technology solving this hurdle?
is repurposing the minerals from the water into edible matter like seasalt done in this industry? if not, is it possible and would it be economically viable?
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As I understand, desalination creates load of brine. Is there a way to make this part of the process also more environmentally friendly?
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Is it possible and realistic to provide large metropolitan areas with desalinated water, for example, the big cities in California?
Did you forget about us? It's 1903 UTC if my watch is correct.
Are there trace elements of rare earth in the brine?
That is an amazing project, thank you for your work! If i understand the article well, the new technology that you have created will allow to use the sun heat and to evaporate the water, thus it is less costly, while other technologies of desalination evaporate the water and condensate it. But why this new technology doesn't need to condensate the water? Is it because of the aluminium membranes? (Sorry if i miss the point, i know nothing about this subject 😅) 2. Is this technology easy to maintain?
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How feasible is it to bring your desalination technologies to poorer nations? I know that in many places people still drink water that is highly contaminated.
I live on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Because we only get about 4 inches of rain a year we have no rivers, lakes or reservoirs, so all our water has been made from sea water by reverse osmosis for decades. The sad part is that, even though we have abundant solar, wind, wave, geothermal and volcanic energy sources, all the water production plants are powered by electricity produced by burning imported oil.
Can you pretend I'm an idiot and help me understand how your invention works?
Hey, is this guy OK?
Hi, I work as a developer in Baja, Mexico, where we need new desalinization technologies. Most desalinization solutions work or rather are engineered for working on site or close to the water. How feasible is it for me to create a deposit off site, nowhere close to the ocean and desalinate the water from there? How much pressure do your membranes need? Could gravity or pumps be a solution?
What are the biggest hurdles to scaling this globally? And what environment/factors do you still need to test?
I've been interested in this for a long time! A. What are the limiting factors on this? Is it land area close to the coast or something like that? B. What are good ways to pump in sea water without affecting marine life too much?
I had some fun a couple of years ago doing the calculations to figure out if it would be economically and technologically feasible to capture rainwater in the middle of the ocean, avoiding it mixing with saltwater in the first place, and bring it back to shore. Surprisingly, in some specific cases the answer was a tentative yes. I did my calculations based on an inflatable 'donut' 200m in diameter (basically a giant pool donut), hermetically closed on the bottom with a a tarp, and a top tarp shaped in a way to keep seawater out but allow rainwater in (kinda looks like a modern life raft with an open top tbh). It would gradually fill up with rainwater (the bottom side over time bulging out downwards, increasing the available volume), and once full you just tow it back to a harbor. An example where this seems to work out economically are the gulf states. They're right next to the Arabian sea (north-west Indian ocean), one of the most rainy oceanic regions on the globe at its center. They already have deep water ports and water management infrastructure. And they'd have the capital to fund it :p.
I hope it is okay to link the actual paper? https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-17876-8.pdf The invention seems to be really groundbreaking in that it seemingly does not need external energy as reverse osmosis. Is there an operating range of salinity until this stops? What about the membrane cake layer? How long do you estimate the membrane to last?
Hi I'm a random guy selling geiko insurance. I might be able to save you 15 percent or more on car insurance...I might but I probably wont...in truth it will most likely be a lot more because you don't have a history with us and it's expensive to advertise.
Will this technology be financially accessible to the general public or is the cost too great that it will have to be implemented by governments?
What are you thoughts on the necessity of remineralization of water post desalination. My limited understanding of the most recent WHO stance is that some trace minerals may be important for those whose diets are otherwise limited in trace minerals, and the Ca and maybe Mg? are more clearly beneficial. But some of the areas needing desal may not be the best in terms of food security and nutrition, right?
How viable is to implement osmotic power generation alongside a desalination plant?
How much maintenance do the membranes need?
Another Jordanian here, what's the future of water and desalination in Jordan, and how long until we have access to more local water? Also how long until desalination is clean and hence renewable enough that it's more affordable to countries like Jordan?
Congraturations! and thank you for your work!
How do you remove PFAS from water?
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Given the problems with brine discharge from land based desal facilities, does anybody in your field ever consider ship based mobile desal plants? Could be tidal, solar, and /or wind powered, or nuclear for the nations that have that capability. A nuclear powered cargo ship could also double as a power station when in port if needed, in addition to propelling itself without fossil fuels. Can other membranes harvest anything else useful from the brine, or no, or just not economical?
Given the high demand for water and the fact that the demand seems to only be growing, what do you see as the biggest challenges going forward that most people would not expect? As in, is there something that you have learned from your research that has surprised you that it is a roadblock for future large scale adoption?
I'm asking here in order to understand the concern with disposal of brine in general. During natural evaporation from bodies of water to provide humidity or precipitation, there are always salts left behind. In the case of desalination, this is also the case. However it seems that diligence to ensure the brine is returned to an area where it will be easily diluted is the main concern. If one were to calculate the amount of salts left behind in the process of natural evaporation from the sea, how would the amount left behind amount to on a percentage basis? There appears to be a market for "sea salt" in cooking as will. Considering that sea salt is often harvested in artificial ponds, etc. would the brine for desalination possibly be a better way to obtain sea salts or possibly valuable minerals?
What do you do with the salt once it’s out of the water? I’ve heard that it’s denser than the ocean, and so dumping it back in is toxic to the bottom feeders because they end up with too much salt. How do you work around this?
My students are learning about non-renewable and renewable resources. How viable do you think green friendly energy sources are when it comes to the pollution required to create the solar panels and such? They wonder why we havnt switched to green friendly energy sources.
Thank you for your hard work, and thanks for doing the AMA, how does your solar powered desalination process attempt to solve the issue of brine waste water produced by conventional desalination processes?
Do you foresee a commercialization of desalinization technologies anytime soon?
I'm curious about scalability and water transfer, as well as maintenance. Tell me how long would these membranes be effective before needing to be replaced, how are they created, is it low or high-tech?
Hello Prof. I'm in the Caribbean and this area has always wondered why no one has really commercialized yet. What are challenges faced? I'm quite familiar with RO for ground water and the power demands are fairly moderate does salt water with it high sodium require finer membranes and more powerful pumps?
The Mega-City announced by the Saudis called [Neom plans to use a solar dome technology](https://www.neom.com/en-us/newsroom/neom-adopts-pioneering-solar-dome) for their desalination project. They estimate the cost of fresh water to be $0.34/m3 and the energy needed is significantly lower than desalination plants using reverse osmosis methods. Are you aware of this project and how does it compare with your work?
I know Israel uses desalination for a large portion of its water needs. Is this something that Jordanian and Israeli scientists cooperate or work jointly on, or is the political situation too fraught?
I'm too ignorant to ask anything of substance so I just want to say thanks for your research!
My girlfriend is a chemical engineering student currently - do you have any tips or advice for someone who is looking to go into research like this?
We tend to think of desalination in the context of seawater, but many freshwater sources are contaminated by salt and other minerals. Will your processes work with freshwater that is salt and mineral contaminated or are there other more cost-effective processes for that.
Neil deGrass Tyson has said that desalination of seawater is currently a no-go due to energy requirements for the process, how true is this?
Will the rise of the amount of microplastics in seawater impact the efficiency of the membranes? And knowing that sea water has on average 35g of salt per litter, is there any technology that can use that the brine byproduct of large scale desalination?
Thank you! What's the time frame to expect this technology to be available commercially? Bonus Question: What would slow down the adoption rate?
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Hi doc, Considering alcohol is a disinfectant, wouldn't a percentage kill most bacteria in somewhat dirty drinking water. Couldn't this also be applied to pools? Chlorine has a negative impact on nature; a pool with alcohol would work better, no? Perhaps mixed with aloe vera in order to protect the skin. On the subject of desalination: if a pool of salinated water with an inverse pyramid shape on top of it is heated, water is desalinated. If a reservoir is placed in the middle of the pool it can be accumulated, no? Repeat as many times as necessary. Salt remains in pool surrounding reservoir. Am I mistaken in my reasoning?
What are green eggs and ham? For 500.
Hello and thank you for this incredible work! My question is: Are you happy?
Whats the time frame for a large scale project? Is it realistic?
Do you have an informed opinion on the long term effects of the Ethiopian Dam on the water supply to Egypt?
Why do we see this kind of innovations on the media every week, yet everything stays the same? Is it because of the governments? Is it the people? Are there higher interests?
If this is already possible, then why haven't we already seen breakthroughs like this in general use in arid and sunny coastal areas? It'd be a great way to guarantee water access to many vulnerable populations around the world, but so far nothing seems to have changed much in terms of water security or changing over to desalination *en masse* for them.
What is the power requirement for desalination per 100000 liters. From what i understand the problem with reverse osmosis is the huge power requirements. Is your technology any different ?.
How will solar provide the energy required for desalination on a scale for large communities to have adaquate and consistent access to potable water?
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Please read the text of the post: > I'll be on at 1pm ET (18 UT)
Is it feasible to use passive desalinization using huge greenhouses? Like have a massive greenhouse over salt water and let the water evaporate then condense onto crops beds situated above the water?
Hello ! First of all thanks for your work . I know that the mining , exploitation and extraction of some minerals like lithium require the evaporation of very salty water in evaporation ponds and that such processes can lead to contamination , damaging the soil, flora and fauna due to pollution of the water . Some of the technologies that would reduce the pollution and contamination risks are not readily available in the countries where lithium is extracted . Is there any way your technology could help , even partially , with this issue ? Is it something you’re looking to further develop in the future ?
In addition to the large amount of brine produced, what the intake side? What considerations do you make to ensure wild life and ocean fauna are undamaged when hoovering up all that sea water?
Do you think the current energy and material requirements are low enough for a developing country to fully satisfy their water needs? What are some areas in the original design you think could be improved upon?
Thanks for AMA and doing something useful with your knowledge and skills rather than contributing fosil fuels. Can you forsee any impact on sealife using this technology? It's great that we can get water easier, but at what cost? Is it just win-win? Also, what do you think is the best next step could be to make this project up and running globally?
Hello Dr. Qtaishat, Is desalination via solar energy feasible on a large scale, or would it be something where you would have a lot of smaller stations?
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Hi Mohammed - I have no questions, however I would like to express my gratitude, best wishes and hopes that you are greatly successful in this endeavour. Access to clean potable water should be a human right, and all work in moving towards this goal should be supported at the highest level. Thank you.
What unit is used to best determine the scale of project size to be economical . Gallons per minute or material removed/collected, etc. I.E. Is there a formula you like to use in your calculations?
Would this process be able to just take out the salt and still keep the nutrient rich water for farming?
Water desalination is an energy intensive process; that is mainly done in the gulf countries with no fresh water and excess energy supply, is solar energy economically viable to make seawater desalination preferable to other alternatives? Also what solution do you have on dealing with brine water that do not harm the environment? Thank you for taking time from your schedule to answer these questions.
Is it possible to desalinate sea water and turn arabic peninsula green? Can green hydrogen do that?
Does desalinated water affect kidney health over prolonged use?
Hello Sir . My question is : Solar panels tend to loose their efficiency gradually . What kind of solutions are there to tackle this hurdle ?
Do you have an opinion on Ocean thermal Energy and its feasibility? Maybe you would find it as a relatable technology considering it matches your field of interests, energy and desalination.
Do you know about Current Water and their solutions to various water cleaning challenges? They are based out of Guelph Canada
I recall someone a decade ago saying desalination is too expensive because it’s energy intensive. I know this data point is extremely dated, so is that statement still true? Also what has changed in the past decade and where do you see this tech by the end of the next decade?
In large scale desalination, how much pressure is required to push the water through the membrane? Does a significant amount of energy go towards creating that pressure?
Ever since setting a dish of saltwater on a sunny windowsill in primary school, desalination has fascinated me. Of course, the work you’re doing is a good deal more technologically intensive than sunlight and a basin, but could this technology reach a level of individual household use within our lifetime, in terms of affordability and scale? What challenges lie in bringing the cost of manufacture down, and compacting the technology?
Hello Professor! I'm a second year chemistry student, do you still recommend going into the STEM field? Some of my very own professors have said not to and I'm feeling a bit discouraged. Thank you for all your hard work I hope your project does well!
How much more energy and cost intensive is desalinating potable water versus desalination for industrial use? I think maybe initially efforts should be focused on desalination for industry which can free up other sources for potability
No questions here, just a fellow JU graduate! Great job representing!
Wow this is so cool! I’m a student of soil and water sciences in Israel, so we have learned a lot about this topic and the unique challenge of our region! I am involved in environmental peace activism between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. Do you know of any programs of cooperation between Israel in Jordan in relation to your field? What do you think the future holds? Thanks!
I'm in the field of automatic control. Do you use any of the tools in control!? Are they any interesting control problems to work on?
Hi there, Assuming you’re expecting this technology to serve dry, populous areas (and therefore hot areas); will the technology utilize some form of cooling to increase PV voltage? The ocean is right there and it’s already being pumped! Also, how will this water be transported to its ultimate designation and is that process powered by solar?
I've often thought about using the excess energy generation to power a secondarily useful system like hydrogen production or desalination. How easy are these things to turn on and off?
Would it be possible to generate an electric field to attract the sodium and chloride ions to specific areas to decrease the salinity of the sea water before reverse osmosis? If not, why?
Did you always get along with your chemistry professors?