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Saturday, January 31st, 2015

A Special Kind of Plastic Pipe Could Be the Solution for California’s Water Woes

Author:     Kristine Wong
Source:     takepart
Publication Date:     December 05, 2014
 Link: A Special Kind of Plastic Pipe Could Be the Solution for California’s Water Woes
Stephan:   I am always on the outlook for new technologies that could help with what is coming as a result of climate change. Here is a very interesting one, a plastic that can be made into pipes and other things that simply by the nature of the plastic converts saltwater to fresh.  It holds promise as at least a partial solution to some of the problems of drought in agricultural areas. My concern about such a system is what happens to the super-salty flush water. But at least this seems to be a place to start dealing with a horrendous planet-wide problem that is only going to get worse. This story is good news.
Design, Technology Innovation's water pipe that that changes saltwater to pure simply by the nature of the plastic. Credit: Design Technology Innovation

Design, Technology Innovation’s water pipe that that changes saltwater to pure simply by the nature of the plastic.
Credit: Design Technology Innovation

When drought grabs hold of a region—as it has in epic proportions in California—desalination seems like an obvious way to get  the freshwater we need for drinking, cooking, and irrigating crops. But the process of removing salt from saline water is pricey, typically costing twice as much as building a reservoir or recycling wastewater.

What if you could flip the process, extracting pure water vapor from saltwater?

That’s the approach U.K.-based Design Technology & Innovation took to develop a new irrigation system that pumps saltwater into underground pipes but only releases freshwater vapor into the soil—the salt remains trapped inside.

What’s the secret? A special kind of plastic dubbed Dutyion.

“We basically stumbled across a plastic with a particular ability to allow water vapor to pass through it, but virtually nothing else,” said DTI’s Mark Tonkin, who […]

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