Electricity from saltwater.

[SergiusPaulus]

Nanofluidic device generates power with saltwater

There is a largely untapped energy source along the world's coastlines: the difference in salinity between seawater and freshwater. A new nanodevice can harness this difference to generate power.

techxplore.com

Hopefully we can use the oceans for electricity soon.

 

[SergiusPaulus]

It’s early in development. Currently it uses the boundaries of freshwater and saltwater to create the electricity. But maybe eventually the ocean will be in reach.

 

[SergiusPaulus]

Aside from this article, can we harvest electricity from evaporation process? As water goes from liquid to a gas can that process produce electricity? Sounds like steam power to me maybe.

 

[MODAT7]

Comparing it to solar panels means it doesn't have a very high output. Ocean water isn't pure salt water. It's likely that the nano pores would get quickly clogged up. Pre-filtering the salt water would help, but then there's still the issues of powering the pumps and mineral build ups.

Evaporation is a more temperature differential process. General evaporation isn't useful. If it's hot enough, some of that heat causing evaporation can be captured for use. Most of the time, the heat isn't hot enough to do meaningful work. If it's direct solar thermal, parabolic reflectors can be used for concentrators, and those can be somewhat useful, at least if the sun's out. Think solar water heaters. If the water gets hot enough, it can be flashed to steam and turn a steam turbine for electricity, but these aren't very common nor DIY friendly.

 

[Einstein]

Heat isn't needed to separate the the water from sea water. Just use the freeze dry process.

 

[SergiusPaulus]

Icebergs are freshwater frozen. Is the surrounding water around them a mixture of dissolving salt, similar to a freshwater river meeting the ocean?

 

[Wind7]

Icebergs are freshwater frozen. Is the surrounding water around them a mixture of dissolving salt, similar to a freshwater river meeting the ocean?

Can the ocean freeze?

Sea water has been defined as a weak solution of almost everything. Ocean water is indeed a complex solution of mineral salts and of decayed biologic matter that results from the teeming life in the seas

oceanservice.noaa.gov

 

[SergiusPaulus]

Thank you. I had read that many ice bergs were fresh water objects. But there may indeed be saltwater icebergs. In this article from National Geographic the last paragraph says that icebergs that travel towards equator tend to melt. So as a freshwater iceberg melts will it dissolve the salt in nearby saltwater? Would it be worth following melting icebergs to expand on the research of the dissolving salt? I’m just wondering if rivers entering the ocean is not the only place where this dissolving occurs. Iceberg.

 

[SergiusPaulus]

Thank you. I had read that many ice bergs were fresh water objects. But there may indeed be saltwater icebergs. In this article from National Geographic the last paragraph says that icebergs that travel towards equator tend to melt. So as a freshwater iceberg melts will it dissolve the salt in nearby saltwater? Would it be worth following melting icebergs to expand on the research of the dissolving salt? I’m just wondering if rivers entering the ocean is not the only place where this dissolving occurs. Iceberg.

Also, if icebergs are clean water then it may be a better reaction with the salt rather than muddy rivers entering the ocean, if the rivers tend to be muddy from the turbulent collision of the river meeting the ocean.

 

[8thsinner]

There are various adaptions of technology in the arena of enhancing the cassimir effect to generate (convert). In most cases this isn't really a ready source because gravetic frequencies are too subtle on land or in our local space. However, if the same tech arrangements are placed in pressure sensitive circumstances then they can generate hundreds of thousands of volts. In places like along the sea bed where the compression forces are in the hundreds of thousands of pounds of pressure depending how deep you go.
Or you could build a variant "antigravity" chamber and create these forces by manipulation of the gravetic frequencies to compress a space above ground for a fraction of the power converted. You probably wouldn't even lose 2% capacity in the gravetics.