This is a fascinating technique to split a stream of saltwater into nearly-fresh and very-salty substreams. It’s not really clear to me why the ions all go to one side though — naively I’d assume that the positive ions would go to one side and the negative to the other side so there must be some detail I’m misunderstanding…
More info: http://news.mit.edu/2015/shockwave-process-desalination-water-1112
They also say that the high electric field could kill bacteria as a nice side effect.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/environment/shocking-trick-to-desalinate-water
‘Clickbait’ title, heh.
Ted Phillips I don’t think it’s clickbait, but it certainly is punny.
interesting to see if this holds up
Hi Chris, interesting article. I think you may be confused because it wasn’t a terribly clear article. They mention applying a current, but I think they meant voltage. My guess is, they ramp up the voltage high enough to ‘yank’ the ions to one side of the stream — ‘shock wave’, which creates Na+ and Cl- ions effectively desalinating the water. It seems plausible to me at least. 🙂