Solar desalination

Solar desalination is a technology to desalinate water using solar energy. Compared with the traditional power and heat sources, solar energy is safe and clean, therefore, combining solar collection with desalination is a sustainable way.

Solar desalination has some advantages. It can operate independently with no pollution, low energy consumption, safe and reliable operation. It does not consume oil, natural gas, coal, which plays a significant role in energy shortage.

China is short of water resource. People are lacking of fresh water in some area, thereby, because drinking water does not meet health standards in a long term, they have a variety of diseases. Hence, the shortage of fresh water is a serious problem. However, regular methods such as distillation, ion exchange, dialysis, reverse osmosis membrane and freezing have to consume large amounts of fuel and electricity, which may have adverse influence on air quality and environment. Therefore, using solar desalination is an effective way.

However, even though solar energy is easy to collect, the equipment of solar desalination requires large amount of investment, which in turn, will cause high water charge. So if there are no methods to reduce costs, solar desalination, I think, may not be widely used.