The Power Of Salt For Renewable Energy

According to this Plant Engineering article, potential for a new form of renewable energy lies where salt water and fresh water meet. A team of mechanical engineers at MIT are currently studying this process.

Plant Engineering

Where the river meets the sea, there is the potential to harness a significant amount of renewable energy, according to a team of mechanical engineers at MIT.

The researchers evaluated an emerging method of power generation called pressure retarded osmosis (PRO), in which two streams of different salinity are mixed to produce energy. In principle, a PRO system would take in river water and seawater on either side of a semi-permeable membrane. Through osmosis, water from the less-salty stream would cross the membrane to a pre-pressurized saltier side, creating a flow that can be sent through a turbine to recover power.

The MIT team has now developed a model to evaluate the performance and optimal dimensions of large PRO systems. In general, the researchers found that the larger a system's membrane, the more power can be produced - but only up to a point. Interestingly, 95 percent of a system's maximum power output can be generated using only half or less of the maximum membrane area.

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