What do you believe is the single most important factor driving up the cost of living in Nigeria?

Seemingly miraculous innovations have made it possible to slake the ever-growing thirsts of our industrial society. Need more energy? Frack it from deep-bedded rocks. Fresh water? Desalinate ocean flows. Precious metals? Leach them from low-grade ores that were previously unminable.

But these and other marvels leave us in a pickle—awash in a sea of hypersaline brine. This "brine"—wastewater containing levels of salt many times higher than seawater and often contaminated with pollutants—is a byproduct of these and other industrial processes, and it's a problem.

"The disposal of brine solutions with total dissolved solids greater than 60,000 mg l−1 poses technical, environmental and economic hurdles that remain mostly unresolved," said Arup SenGupta, P.C. Rossin Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Lehigh University.

However, a new approach developed by SenGupta and visiting researcher Hao Chen (then a doctoral student) represents a leap forward in cleaning up and even potentially unlocking valuable resources lurking in the super-salty water. The work is published in the journal Nature Water.

Current methods

• Read More