Revolutionary Techniques in Desalination: A Step Toward Cleaner Drinking Water
A groundbreaking advancement in desalination technology is set to replace traditional costly chemicals with innovative carbon cloth electrodes that effectively eliminate boron from seawater—crucial for converting seawater into potable water.
The Research Behind the Innovation
This pioneering method was detailed in an article published by engineers from the University of Michigan and Rice University in Nature Water.
Boron naturally occurs in seawater; however, when it infiltrates treated drinking water through standard filtration methods, it can become hazardous. According to recent studies, boron levels in seawater are approximately double the World Health Organization’s most lenient guidelines for safe drinking water and can be five to twelve times higher than what many crops can endure.
“Most reverse osmosis membranes struggle to effectively eliminate boron,” stated Jovan Kamcev, an assistant professor specializing in chemical engineering at U-M and a leading author of the research. “Our developed technology offers a scalable approach that efficiently removes boron while consuming less energy compared to conventional methods.”
The Scientific Challenge of Boron Removal
In its natural state within seawater as electrically neutral boric acid, boron bypasses typical reverse osmosis membranes designed primarily to repel charged particles known as ions. To address this challenge, desalination facilities routinely add alkaline substances during treatment; this transforms the neutral boric acid into negatively charged ion forms. Subsequent reverse osmosis processes then target these newly reactive particles before they are neutralized again by introducing acidic components—a series of steps that significantly inflate operational costs.
Benefits Derived From Enhanced Desalination Processes
“This novel device minimizes both chemical inputs and energy consumption associated with desalinating seawater,” noted Weiyi Pan, a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University who co-authored the study. “The approach could potentially reduce costs by up to 15%, translating roughly to 20 cents per cubic meter of treated output.”
Considering global desalination capacity hit 95 million cubic meters daily back in 2019, this innovation could implicate annual savings nearing $6.9 billion across global operations. Major facilities like San Diego’s Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant stand poised for substantial budget relief thanks to such technological advancements.
This remarkable cost-saving potential might pave pathways for more reliable access to drinking water derived from abundant ocean resources amid escalating freshwater shortages projected through future decades—whereby freshwater supplies may only cover 40% of anticipated demand by 2030 based on findings released earlier this year from the Global Commission on Economics related specifically to water resources.
A Focused Solution: Oxygen-Infused Electrodes
The innovative electrodes developed trap harmful boron within pores lined with oxygen reactants specifically designed for binding them while allowing other components found within salted waters pass freely—maximizing efficiency capabilities when extracting contaminants like these from larger sources such as overflowing oceans.
Innovative Techniques for Effective Boron Removal in Desalination
Recent advancements in water filtration methods have shown promise in addressing the challenge of removing boron from seawater during desalination processes. These novel approaches stem from a study conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan and other institutions.
The Mechanism Behind Boron Capture
The carbon cloth fibers utilized within the electrodes go through an acid treatment that enhances their ability to form oxygen-containing structures capable of trapping boron particles. However, for this process to work successfully, boron must be negatively charged. Rather than relying on additional chemical inputs like bases, the negative charge is generated through electrolysis — a process where water is split between two electrodes. This reaction produces positive hydrogen ions and negative hydroxide ions; these hydroxide ions then attach themselves to boron, imparting it with a negative charge that allows it to bind effectively at designated capture sites within the positively charged electrode’s porous structure.
Energy Savings through Efficient Design
By employing this method for capturing boron directly via electrodes, wastewater processing facilities can streamline their operations by eliminating unnecessary energy expenditures associated with subsequent reverse osmosis steps. Once captured and bound at the electrode surface, hydrogen and hydroxide ions are capable of recombining to generate neutral H2O devoid of significant levels of boron.
Broad Implications for Water Treatment
“Our research provides a versatile framework that utilizes pH fluctuations which may also transform other hazardous elements like arsenic into forms that are easier to extract,” explained Menachem Elimelech — a prominent scholar holding positions in Civil and Environmental Engineering as well as Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University and one of the study’s leading authors. He further emphasized that “the functional groups present on our electrode can be modified specifically to interact with various contaminants effectively,” which could pave the way for more sustainable approaches in energy-efficient water purification procedures.
Further Reading
For those interested in digging deeper into this groundbreaking research:
Weiyi Pan et al., “A highly selective and energy efficient approach to boron removal overcomes challenges faced by seawater desalination,” published in Nature Water (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44221-024-00362-y
Source Information
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University of Michigan
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New innovations enhance seawater treatment capabilities while minimizing chemical use (2025, January 20), retrieved January 20, 2025 from https://techxplore.com/news/2025-01-purification-technology-seawater-tons-chemicals.htmlI’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that.
