Solar still smashes desalination record

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Engineers from MIT and China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University have developed a solar still that can desalinate a record amount of water. 

Known as the thermally-localised multistage solar still (TMSS), the device evaporates and condenses water numerous times, working in much the same way as alcohol stills. It has multiple layers of flat solar evaporators and condensers, positioned in a vertical array with an insulating aerogel at the top.

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At each stage, heat released by the previous stage is harnessed rather than wasted, meaning energy from the sun is converted to evaporation energy with an overall efficiency of 385 per cent. On a rooftop in MIT, the TMSS produced 5.78 litres of water a day per square metre of solar material. According to MIT professor of mechanical engineering Evelyn Wang, this is twice as much water as any other passive solar-powered desalination system has produced.

"When you condense water, you release energy as heat," said Wang. "If you have more than one stage, you can take advantage of that heat."

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