Capillary-driven seawater desalination

摘要: We demonstrate a novel capillary-driven seawater desalination system. The essence of the system is an open loop heat pipe. Seawater evaporated at outer surface wick structure “heat pipe”, where capillary pressure developed as driving force to ensure continuous operation produced vapor then condensed into fresh water in condenser. difference from regular pipe that evaporator not fed back with water, but instead. With source 40℃, production rate achieved up 91.8 g/h for effective evaporation area 50.24 cm2. TDS (total dissolvable solids) less than 30 mg/L, far beyond standard drinking water. For wide temperature adaptability, particularly, low temperatures, presented technique may have big potentials use low-cost and low-grade energy produce