Thought this was cool; sharing

[kandrathe]

An issue is is that this kind of separation only works in small channels (because of diffusion length of the ions). So to scale this up you have to make microfluidic chips in parallel which makes the whole thing more expensive. So I don't really see this becoming anything soon.

What if we also used gravity and traditional reverse osmosis?

1000 psi is achievable at about 21 meters under the ocean surface, which is sufficient to enable reverse osmosis desalination. If you built a reinforced tube system, where the outer sleeve had a self cleaning macro filter perhaps using these circuits, at the bottom, then feeding a circulating RO system, with an inner tube left to fill with fresh pure H2O.

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I would see the bulk of the energy needed in a scheme like this used for pumping and to get the seawater clean enough for RO. Maybe the energy needed could be solar, with a rechargeable battery up on top. Anyway, for general use, simpler would be better.