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Researchers discover game-changing method to unlock clean water for billions of people: 'Can also be used to distill groundwater'
What if a hunk of hot metal could unlock clean water for billions of people? A team of researchers in Japan has developed a groundbreaking new method — and it's powered by something as abundant as sunlight.
A team led by associate professor Masatoshi Kondo at the Institute of Science Tokyo, has developed a method to use liquid tin to desalinate seawater and recover valuable metals simultaneously, utilizing solar heat as the primary energy source. Unlike traditional desalination, which consumes significant amounts of electricity and generates toxic brine, this method is low-waste, low-energy, and high-reward.
"Unlike conventional methods, large consumption of electricity is not necessary, enabling the development of a sustainable process," said Dr. Kondo.
Over four billion people experience water scarcity each year, and the demand for clean drinking water continues to increase. Traditional desalination can help — but it's costly, energy-hungry, and generates an estimated over five billion cubic feet of brine daily. That's enough to fill around 50,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, often dumped back into oceans where it harms marine life.
This is where Dr. Kondo and his research team come in. Co-authored by doctoral student Toranosuke Horikawa, then-bachelor student Mahiro Masuda, and assistant professor Minho Oh from Science Tokyo, their study aims not only to find a simple solution to desalination but also to transform the brine from an environmental issue into a resource.
Kondo's team flips the script by using the brine as a resource instead of waste. Here's how it works. Brine is sprayed onto molten tin. The heated tin evaporates the water, leaving behind a mix of useful metals, including magnesium, calcium, and potassium. As the tin cools, it releases these metals for recovery. Meanwhile, the steam condenses into distilled fresh water.
This isn't just a lab curiosity — it's a game-changer for public health, especially in areas hardest hit by drought, contamination, or poor infrastructure. Researchers can also adapt the process to treat polluted groundwater, including arsenic-contaminated sources that pose a threat to millions worldwide. And because it relies on heat — ideally from solar power — it could bring clean water access to off-grid or resource-limited communities.
"The proposed technology … can also be used to distill groundwater polluted with arsenic without consuming large amounts of energy or producing waste," Dr. Kondo added.
Though still in the research phase, this discovery could mark a major leap forward in sustainable water treatment. It tackles two issues at once — clean water access and resource recovery — while keeping environmental impact low. If scaled successfully, it could reduce costs, decrease pollution, and help stabilize ecosystems affected by over-extraction and drought.
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