{"id":662898,"date":"2025-04-15T21:50:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T18:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/new-membranes-could-help-eliminate-brine-waste\/"},"modified":"2025-04-15T21:50:20","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T18:50:20","slug":"new-membranes-could-help-eliminate-brine-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/new-membranes-could-help-eliminate-brine-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"New membranes could help eliminate brine waste"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Jovan Kamcev, assistant professor of chemical engineering, places a membrane into an electrodialysis device. Credit: Marcin Szczepanski\/Michigan Engineering
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Desalination plants, a major and growing source of freshwater in dry regions, could produce less harmful waste using electricity and new membranes made at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n

The membranes could help desalination plants minimize or eliminate brine waste produced as a byproduct of turning seawater into drinking water. Today, liquid brine waste is stored in ponds until the water evaporates, leaving behind solid salt or a concentrated brine that can be further processed. But brine needs time to evaporate, providing ample opportunities to contaminate groundwater.<\/p>\n

Space is also an issue. For every liter of drinking water produced at the typical desalination plant, 1.5 liters of brine are produced. Over 37 billion gallons of brine waste is produced globally every day, according to a UN study. When space for evaporation ponds is lacking, desalination plants inject the brine underground or dump it into the ocean. Rising salt levels near desalination plants can harm marine ecosystems.<\/p>\n

“There’s a big push in the desalination industry for a better solution,” said Jovan Kamcev, U-M assistant professor of chemical engineering and the corresponding author of a study published<\/a> in Nature Chemical Engineering<\/i>. “Our technology<\/a> could help desalination plants be more sustainable by reducing waste while using less energy.”<\/p>\n

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To eliminate brine waste, desalination engineers would like to concentrate the salt such that it can be easily crystallized in industrial vats rather than ponds that can occupy over a hundred acres. The separated water could be used for drinking or agriculture, while the solid salt could then be harvested for useful products. Seawater not only contains sodium chloride\u2014or table salt\u2014but valuable metals such as lithium for batteries, magnesium for lightweight alloys and potassium for fertilizer.<\/p>\n

Desalination plants can concentrate brines by heating and evaporating the water, which is very energy intensive, or with reverse osmosis, which only works at relatively low salinity. Electrodialysis is a promising alternative because it works at high salt concentrations and requires relatively little energy. The process uses electricity to concentrate salt, which exists in water as charged atoms and molecules called ions.<\/p>\n

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