New solar-power desalination device leaves no brine

University of Rochester researchers have built a solar-powered desalination device that doesn't leave behind brine — the concentrated saltwater that conventional plants dump back into the ocean, where it raises salinity and starves sea life of oxygen. The panels are black metal etched with femtosecond lasers, so the surface both absorbs nearly all sunlight and wicks a thin film of water across it, distilling fresh water and shunting the leftover salts to untreated edges instead of letting them clog the works. — Read the rest The post New solar-power desalination device leaves no brine appeared first on Boing Boing.