This Little Gadget Can Make Seawater Drinkable!

A group of researchers affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came up with a small, portable, and filter-free device capable of cleaning undrinkable water with the single push of a button, to the delight of millions of people in need of the precious resource.

“This is really the culmination of a 10-year journey that I and my group have been on,” says Jongyoon Han, senior author of the paper and a professor of electrical engineering, computer science, and biological engineering. “We worked for years on the physics behind individual desalination processes, but pushing all those advances into a box, building a system, and demonstrating it in the ocean, that was a really meaningful and rewarding experience for me.”

The device weighing less than 10 kg is small enough to fit into a suitcase. Powered by a small portable solar panel – the unit requires less energy to operate than a cell phone charger – it removes particles and salts using electrical power, thus eliminating the need for filters and reducing long-term maintenance requirements. Tests prove that the prototype generates drinking water at a rate of 0.3 liters per hour and requires only 20 watt-hours per liter. The user-friendly instrument could be used by people living in remote areas, by refugees fleeing natural disasters or war-torn regions, or by soldiers carrying out long-term military operations.