Because of population growth, Although the Earth is called the “Water Planet,” only 2.5% is fresh water that can be used by humans, who have long dreamed of developing a practical desalinization technology.POWER OF INNOVATION droughts due fresh water A water treatment membrane developed by Toray, Japanese manufacturer of synthetic fibers, is benefiting desalinization facilities around the world. With fresh water in short supply globally, what contributions can be anticipated? of carbon dioxide emissions. Satoshi Shimoyama, general manager of Water Treatment Division of Toray Industries, Inc., takes a long-term view. “At the beginning of the 1960s, U.S. President Kennedy advocated research of desalinization as a national project, saying, ‘If we could ever competitively, at a cheap rate, get fresh water from salt water, that it would be in the long-range interests of humanity.’ Toray has directed attention to that idea, too. Putting our expertise in fibers to good use, we started researching the area to global warming, and water pollution due to industrialization, the shortage of is becoming a serious concern in many countries. Increasingly, people are looking at the oceans, which hold 97.5% of the water on our planet. Methods for converting seawater into fresh water have long relied on evaporation, in which seawater is first evaporated and the steam then condensed into fresh water, but that requires tremendous energy, with the additional problem from an early date.” Inspired by basic research started in the United States, Toray’s young engineers began in 1968 to develop a membrane filter called a “reverse osmosis membrane” (RO membrane). The resulting membrane treatment method, using that membrane, separates the salt from seawater by passing it through a membrane filter having minute pores only 0.6-0.8 nm in diameter, thus providing fresh water. Being less expensive and less energy-intensive than the conventional evaporation method, the membrane treatment 22From Seawater to Drinking Water
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