The severe shortage of fresh water resources threatens the survival of hundreds of millions of civilians around the world. Recently, the Nanotechnology Water Treatment Center (NEWT) of Rice University in Texas, USA, stated that it has mastered the key steps to use solar energy to desalinate seawater, and made an important breakthrough in seawater desalination technology. The new research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

At present, there are about 18,000 desalination plants in 150 countries around the world, and almost without exception, the methods of evaporation, condensation, and capture are used to produce fresh water. Among its costs, energy accounts for more than 50%.

This project is led by the Nanotechnology Water Treatment Center of Rice University in the United States. Compared with the traditional method, the team researchers add special nanoparticles to the distillation film to instantly convert solar energy into heat (self-heating), so no additional energy is needed Make the water boil. The hot brine is repeatedly distilled along one side of the porous membrane, while the condensed fresh water is collected through the other side.