More than 800 million people around the world lack access to clean drinking water. And according to the United Nations, the figure will swell to 3.3 billion by 2030. As seawater is already a vital source of drinking water in many parts of the world, the need to find smarter desalination methods increases by the day.
One of the fundamental challenges facing modern day water desalination is energy consumption. Desalination plants use vast amounts of fossil fuel-generated electricity, and in so doing, contribute to climate change.
Jiwoong Lee, of the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Chemistry, has invented a groundbreaking technology that uses of CO2 to convert seawater into drinking water without electricity.
"It's a bit like the SodaStream machine that many people have in their kitchens. You add some CO2 to the water, after which a chemical process begins. But instead of using the CO2 for bubbly carbonation, we use it to separate salt from water," explains Jiwoong Lee, who, in addition to being a Department of Chemistry researcher and assistant professor, is the founder and CSO of CowaTech ApS, the spinout that patented his invention.
Continue reading at University of Copenhagen.
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