For a cost-rich country like Australia, oceanic wave energy is a ready and largely-untapped source of essentially unlimited power, and the Perth-based Wave Energy Project has just set a new world record after 14,000 total hours of operation.

Located off the coast of Western Australia, the CETO 5 energy system has been live for a year and not only generates clean energy but also desalinates water for human consumption.

This remarkable project also represents another milestone: the first array of wave power generators tied directly into a country’s electrical grid. Each unit of their next-generation variant has a one-megawatt capacity (four times the current version 5 output), all with zero emissions.

“ARENA is proud to help local companies, like [Carnegie Wave Energy Limited], develop new renewable energy solutions that have the potential to change the way the world generates electricity,” said ARENA CEO Ivor Frischknecht. “We do this by providing Australian innovators with the support they need during the critical RD&D period, when patient funding is essential.”

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A revolutionary new cheap, easy and effective method uses shockwaves for desalinating water, separating salt out by applying electric current in a process dubbed electrodialysis, thanks to Martin Bazant, engineering and mathematics professor at MIT, and his team.

Unlike straining and boiling, the process is not prone to clogs or energy-intensive. Salt-enriched and salt-depleted water separates when electrodes are attached to porous ‘frit’ made of small glass particles. The resulting flows are separated so the freshwater can be collected for use. Effectively, when the current is increased to a certain point, it generates a shockwave between these two zones, sharply dividing the streams and allowing the fresh and salty regions to be separated by a simple physical barrier at the center of the flow.

The current can kill problematic bacteria as well, helping filter as well as desalinate if needed in areas with contaminated water. This approach is “a fundamentally new and different separation system,” Bazant says. And unlike most other approaches to desalination or water purification, he adds, this one performs a “membraneless separation” of ions and particles (via Fastco and Inhabitat).

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According to data from the World Health Organization and UNICEF, over 780 million people – or about one in nine – lack access to safe, clean drinking water. Millions of people die each year from water-related illnesses, and most of these are in the developing world. Since fresh water sources around the world are steadily dwindling while salt water sources remain plentiful, turning that salt water into potable water could be one way to help the growing water crisis. The small device seen above is a potential life-saver for untold millions. It is a simple, low-cost desalination device – a “chip” that removes the salt from salt water, making it suitable for humans to drink.

Okeanos Technologies was formed to flesh out the idea of a small chip that would use a weak electrical charge to remove the salt from salt water, using a mere 3 volts of energy. Each chip desalinates millionths of a liter at a time, a process called microdesalination. The process uses a form of energy called an electrochemical field gradient, a very effective method but one that can’t be used at macro levels. This may not sound like much, but the technology is modular in nature, meaning that hundreds or thousands of the chips can be used in unison to create fresh water for a person, a neighborhood, or a city – provided there is a source of salt water nearby.

Each chip features a microchannel with two branches. An embedded electrode creates an “ion depletion zone” which neutralizes chloride ions, guiding fresh water down one branch and salt down the other. The novel approach to desalination is much less energy-intensive than standard methods and requires no post-treatment or membranes to operate. Other than the basic removal of sediment, no pre-treatment is necessary. Bacteria and viruses are removed by the chip as well, making the newly-desalinated water completely safe to drink. Okeanos hopes to eventually build a vending machine-type device that would operate as a standalone desalination plant to provide water for an entire village, no special tools or knowledge required.

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