71 percent of the earth is covered in water and our oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all the water on earth. Which means most of it is not drinkable, unless you pull out the salt. That process known as desalination is only one step in the process of producing drinkable water from ocean or waste water. But now chemists at UC Berkeley have discovered a way to simplify the process. Either before or after the removal of salt, the treated water needs further purification to remove heavy metals like arsenic, mercury, boron but also gold or other precious metals. The new technique, which can easily be added to current membrane-based electrodialysis desalination processes, removes nearly 100% of toxic metals, producing a pure brine along with pure water and isolating the valuable metals for later use or disposal.

Read full story on: Berkeley News