Assault On The Salt: New "Fertigation" System Desalinates Using Fertilizer

Researchers in Sydney, Australia required a way to quickly and efficiently desalinate water for irrigation during the difficult and dry brushfire season. What they achieved may help mankind the world over.

Creating a system called "Fertilizer Drawn Forward Osmosis" that is 80% more energy efficient than traditional heating/evaporation and filtering methods, researchers hope to preserve the nation's normal clean drinking water supplies while expanding the desalinization for irrigation. "By reducing the demand that irrigation places on our traditional water supplies, we are conserving precious water for domestic use in our homes," said head researcher Dr Hokyong Shon to www.phys.org

The new process, which uses soluble fertilizer to help strain the water, is called "fertigation." It is already in use desalinating water at a coal mining site in Newcastle. Further experiments hope to use the converted "osmotic energy" to power energy devices, like turbines.

A small-scale fertigation system.