{"id":165798,"date":"2024-11-12T14:36:50","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T20:36:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?p=165798"},"modified":"2024-12-13T11:14:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-13T17:14:53","slug":"seawater-desalination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/tech\/seawater-desalination\/","title":{"rendered":"Water Scarcity: A Seawater Desalination Project Powered by Solar Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A team of researchers from Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey has devised a solution to tackle water scarcity: a project that uses solar energy to desalinate seawater<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although 70% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water, around 3.7 billion people worldwide<\/strong> \u2013 nearly half of the global population \u2013 are affected by a lack of access to clean water. According to the 2024 United Nations World Water Development Report<\/a>, this number could rise to 5.7 billion by 2050.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Desalination involves removing salt and minerals from seawater through methods like reverse osmosis. However, this process requires vast amounts of space and energy, often from fossil fuels, making it both expensive and environmentally unsustainable<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlos Rivera<\/strong><\/a>, a researcher at the Institute of Advanced Materials for Sustainable Manufacturing<\/strong><\/a> and a professor at the School of Engineering and Sciences<\/strong><\/a> at Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey, explains that the method they developed combines two existing technologies<\/a>: solar thermal collectors and membrane distillation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a sustainable process that doesn\u2019t pollute. We ran dynamic simulations, and now we want to build a prototype to prove that seawater can be desalinated using solar energy<\/strong>,\u201d says Rivera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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