“The researchers estimate that if the system is scaled up to the size of a small suitcase, it could produce about 4 to 6 liters of drinking water per hour and last several years before requiring replacement parts.”
The MIT and Shanghai Jiao Tong team built prototypes with one, three and 10 stages and extrapolated to square-meter stages. Their earlier design clogged with salt crystals after a few days, and the fix after that desalinated too slowly. This one borrows the ocean’s thermohaline circulation to flush salt out with no electricity. Cheaper than tap water is a calculation, not a measurement.