Introduction
So many people get grumpy when they do not have enough water to quench their thirst, grow their crops, clean their bodies, or remove their biological waste. More than 95% of Earths water is saturated with NaCl (salt). This article will propose centrifuge driven desalination to increase clean water production while potentially reducing byproducts that have historically caused troublesome byproducts. The concepts proposed in this article are not known to be in development or use anywhere.
Centrifuge Driven Desalination Overview
Water is “sucked” into a mouth at either the top or bottom of the desalination mechanism. As the water enters the pipe it reaches the center where it is “sucked” into a tube that is spinning. The force imposed on the water by the spinning forces the water through a reverse osmosis membrane. Once through the membrane the water is stored in a fresh water chamber until it is pumped to a recipient.
A Little More Detail
The idea is to place a container in the ocean. The container has an opening in the top and bottom that are connected with a pipe. In the middle of the pipe are a number of perpendicular chambers. The perpendicular chambers are open-ended to the pipe with a reverse-osmosis membrane at the other end. These chambers spin as a speed that is adequate to “push/pull” the ocean water through the membrane to create fresh water in the sealed fresh water chambers. As the chambers have a cumulative volume capacity that is no greater than one-third of the cumulative capacity of the vertical pipe the higher salinity levels should naturally continuously dilute with the flow of external ocean water.
Environmental Set-up
It is not reasonable to just drop such a device in the ocean and call it a day. These devices will be required to be placed properly to prevent unacceptable environmental interference, damage, or corruption. The ideal location for these devices is within a human crafted hard-bottom (cement or rock) lagoon that has open-water exchanges with the ocean. The salinity levels within the lagoon will be increased above that of the feeding water from the ocean. At least 60% of the lagoon should be freely open to the ocean with a porous layer of rock separating the two. There should be a few yards of small to medium sized rocks separating the ocean from the lagoon. This will help to keep ocean creatures safe while permitting a hampered exchange of super salinity water with ocean water.
Centrifuge Driven Desalination Considerations
The desalination membranes will need to be replaced regularly. This will cause down-time so having multiple units within a single lagoon or multiple lagoons in a service area may need to be required. Centrifuges make noise and noise pollution is a problem which is especially true for some types of water dwelling creatures. This means the rock wall that separates the ocean from the lagoon should be constructed in a way that provides some dampening capabilities. Lastly, the higher the speed of the spinning the faster water can be pushed through membranes and cleaned with a relative requirements of energy consumption. It may be prudent to find a way to combine the spinning of the centrifuges with known electromagnetic energy generation capabilities and solar energy to offset energy requirements.
Summary
Reaching reverse osmosis membrane escape velocity may increase the production of desalination across the globe or it may just throw spaghetti at the wall. Artificially increasing the water pressure does seem to intuitively be a way to quench more thirst and play in more mud but the proof is in the pudding and no one has even created a recipe yet. The ideas presented here are for thought provocation and as a starting point for redefining how humans clean water. This is not intended to be a fully developed industrial desalination design. Clean, safe, consumable water is only as available as we permit it to be.