Question

With a growing human population, scientists believe that clean freshwater will become scarce (limited). A possible solution is to desalinate salt water.

Using what you've learned in this unit, describe the type of a mixture salt water is and explain how you would separate and collect fresh water from the salt water in the ocean

Answer 1

Salt water is a mixture of pure water and salts such as Sodium Chloride. To provide fresh water to the growing population, desalinization of the oceans waters is being explored especially as inland freshwater sources are being depleted.

This is done through reverse osmosis. Reverse osmosis is reversing the spontaneous movement of water in osmosis. This is done by applying pressure on the saline water to pass through a semipermeable membrane. This membrane occludes large particle such as those of sodium chloride but allows the smaller water molecules to pass through. On the other side of the membrane will be freshwater.