Desalination Can Beat Out Batteries for Excess Energy

Re:Desalination Can Beat Out Batteries for Excess Energy by calamari4065 on Monday December 18, 2023 @07:40PM (#38690360)

The thermodynamic cost of separating salt from water is the same per molecule no matter what. It's a fundamental physical limit.

RO can be more efficient than electrolysis. The major factor is that electrolysis wastes a good fraction of the input energy on heating the water. On the other hand, RO requires high pressures, which is energy intensive.

RO is generally more efficient overall, but either way you have to pay the cost of reversing entropy.

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Re:Desalination Can Beat Out Batteries for Excess Energy by jimnotgym on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @04:39AM (#38706883)

But the electrolysis technique gives you the opportunity to store the energy as hydrogen. This means you can use cheap surplus energy for the electrolysis and burn the hydrogen later when energy is scarce. RO does not have that property

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