Microbial Fuel Cell Cleans Wastewater, Desalinates Seawater, and Generates Power
Not bad for a microbe Desalinization technology has long been trapped between two competing nightmare scenarios. Without desalination, fresh water resources run out and large swaths of the earth suffer crippling water shortages. But if we desalinate on a large scale, we keep burning fossil fuels, the earth warms, the ice caps melt, and sea levels rise to wreak havoc on coastal regions. Desalinization could theoretically solve the impending water crisis if it weren't such an energy-intensive process; desal requires large amounts of electricity, which is primarily generated by burning fossil fuels. Call it a catch-22. But researchers at Penn State think they've solved the problem by creating a process that cleans wastewater while generating electricity, simultaneously removing 90 percent of salt from seawater. Current desal methods -- which either employ reverse osmosis to push high-pressure seawater through salt-extracting membranes, or electrodialysis to pull ions out of water...