Traditionally, converting seawater to potable fresh water requires a large amount of electricity and large desalination plants. However, researchers from MIT and Korea have developed a new approach to desalination that could lead to the manufacture of small, potable units powered by solar cells or batteries. The units could possibly deliver enough fresh water to supply the needs of a family or small village in the case of an emergency of natural disaster.

The approach, called ion concentration polarization, is explained in a paper published in the journal “Nature Nanotechnology” authored by Sung Jae Kim and Jongyoon Han of MIT’s department of electrical engineering and computer science