Now fresh water from sea at lower cost

Washington, July 12: A US company has developed a process that turns sea water into fresh water at around a third of the cost of conventional desalination. This has proved to be a boon for poor countries struggle to obtain affordable clean water for their burgeoning populations.

Called rapid spray evaporation (RSE), it is being developed by AquaSonics International, based in Atlanta, Georgia.

The company has produced portable units capable of converting up to 11,000 litres of water a day and is now scaling up the technology for much larger desalination plants.

"Our process attains near 100 per cent efficiency for recovery of feed water," Henry Lloyd, AquaSonics' chief was quoted as saying in New Scientist. This means the process produces virtually no brine, compared with as much as 40 per cent with processes such as reverse osmosis.

From Bolivia to South Africa, water has triggered political unrest as poor people are forced to spend an ever-larger slice of their income on this essential commodity.

"There are lots of inland and shoreline communities that are facing the problem of salinity in their water," says Mansur Ali, Unicef's senior adviser for water, environment and sanitation.

This offers a good opportunity to replace the current reverse osmosis method." Bureau Report