Batteries provide fresh jolt to desalination technology

Engineers at the University of Illinois are developing a desalination device that uses materials in batteries to remove salt from water.

Illinois mechanical science and engineering professor Kyle Smith and graduate student Rylan Dmello published their work in the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.

Smith said: "By publishing this paper, we're introducing a new type of device to the battery community and to the desalination community."

The most-used method, reverse osmosis, pushes water through a membrane that keeps out the salt, a costly and energy-intensive process. By contrast, the battery method uses electricity to draw charged salt ions out of the water.

The researchers were reportedly inspired by sodium ion batteries, which contain salt water. Batteries have two chambers, a positive electrode and a negative electrode, with a separator in between that the ions can flow across. When the battery discharges, the sodium and chloride ions - the two elements of salt - are drawn to one chamber, leaving desalinated water in the other.