Researchers Use Solar Light in Innovative Process to Produce Clean, Affordable Drinking Water

Australian Researchers Develop Method to Produce Drinking Water and Clean Water Through Solar Light

The world still suffers from a lack of water and/or water scarcity. The WWF (World Wildlife Fund) shows that about 1.1 billion people worldwide lack access to water, with an additional 2.7 million people affected by water scarcity during certain times of the year. Keeping this in mind, desalination is pointed out as a solution to the problem. However, it is still quite expensive. To address the issue, researchers are working on a way to produce drinking water and clean water through solar light.

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The researchers at the Future Industries Institute are in the process of developing a way to provide affordable, clean drinking water to millions of people around the planet. Developing countries are expected to benefit the most. Researchers, led by Haolan Xu, are developing a method to produce drinking water using three types of water: seawater, brackish water, or contaminated water.

How the Project Works

The process is capable of providing drinking water for a family of up to four people, using only 1 square meter of water. “In recent years, there has been a lot of attention on the use of solar evaporation to create drinking water, but previous techniques were too inefficient to be practically useful,” Xu highlighted, making it clear that this outdated technology has been surpassed, and that they can now provide drinking water for a fraction of the cost of the old method.

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How This New Solar Light Technology Works

The new technology, as it is called, consists of a highly efficient photo-thermal structure. The structure is positioned above a water source, converting solar light into heat, thereby concentrating it on the top of the water and evaporating the liquid.

“We have developed a technique that not only prevents any loss of solar energy but also extracts additional energy from the water, meaning the system operates at 100 percent efficiency with solar light input and consumes an additional 170 percent of energy from water and the environment.”

The solar light project for generating drinking water gains more prominence as it is made from simple, low-cost products. Thus, people around the world will be able to use the technique and generate drinking water.