US EditionSpongy Material and the Sun's Power Remove Salt From Seawater
- On July 3, 2025, researchers introduced a solar-powered, sponge-like aerogel that produces potable water from seawater by harnessing natural sunlight beneath a transparent plastic shield in outdoor conditions.
- They created this material to address the high energy costs and environmental impacts of traditional desalination plants, which produce toxic brine harming ecosystems.
- During outdoor experiments, the system produced nearly three tablespoons of drinkable water after six hours under natural sunlight, with larger pieces of the material performing just as effectively as smaller ones.
- Researcher Xi Shen explained that their aerogel can perform desalination efficiently at any size, offering an easy-to-implement and expandable method to generate fresh water without using external energy.
- This innovation suggests a future of affordable, sustainable freshwater production that could benefit communities worldwide by reducing energy use and environmental damage.
12 Articles
12 Articles
This sun-powered sponge pulls drinking water straight from the ocean
In a leap toward sustainable desalination, researchers have created a solar-powered sponge-like aerogel that turns seawater into drinkable water using just sunlight and a plastic cover. Unlike previous materials, this new 3D-printed aerogel maintains its efficiency at larger sizes, solving a key scalability issue. In outdoor tests, it produced clean water directly from the ocean without any electricity, pointing to a future of low-cost, energy-f…
The team's solution consists of the use of nanoparticles and microcrystallines of a "MOF" network with many pores of some nanometers (a million millimetres), which retain organic pollutants.
This spongy material and the sun’s power remove salt from seawater - Scientific Inquirer
Most of Earth’s water is in the oceans and too salty to drink. Desalination plants can make seawater drinkable, but they require large amounts of energy. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have developed a sponge-like material with long, microscopic air pockets that uses sunlight and a simple plastic cover to turn saltwater into freshwater. A proof-of-concept test outdoors successfully produced potable water in natural sunlight in …
Salt-free photothermal desalination using superhydrophilic ultrablack sponge balls under high-salinity conditions
Freshwater scarcity drives the demand for efficient desalination technologies. This study introduces a photothermal evaporation system that uses a sup…
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