A crash course in changing the world.
At MIT, scientists have developed something amazing. Its called ion concentration polarization and it could be the future of purification. By using the same technology which is used to create computer chips, they have invented a way to channel water into tiny grooves (or microchannels), and then remove all contaminates using electromagnetism. The simplified concept of using electromagnetism works as follows: because all things carry a positive or negative charge, while water does not, the magnetism repulses or attracts the objects out of the water. Because the chip uses magnetism, and not a nanopore system that other cutting edge systems use, It has no clogging issues.
So far the researchers have only demonstrated single channels in action, which can only produce small amounts of water. Soon however, using modern manufacturing techniques, they plan on creating massive arrays of these microchannels ( using methods similar to the concepts found in nano lithography)From their estimates, if they could create a 1600 channel chip, the result would be 15 pure liters of per hour. As this technology develops, along with nanotech, I expect to see it become manufactured in a roll to roll method, which could lower the cost of the chip to the point of being accessable all over the world.
Here are some sources for the inspired among us.
http://web.mit.edu/press/2010/desalination.html
http://www.ll.mit.edu/publications/labnotes/pumponachip.html
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