Salt water power could change everything

If you haven’t already heard there have been massive advancements made in the development of salt water technology in the past few years. Enough you could say to question our ongoing dependence on fossil fuels and so much so that it could revolutionise not just the automotive and transportation industry but the power industry as a whole. But how will this affect you and where can this technology really take us? Here in our Melbourne office we take a look into this amazing new development and find out what it means to the everyday person.

Jet fuel from Salt water

I first came across these new developments in an article on the US Navy claiming that they could produce JP-5 jet fuel from seawater. At first this seemed altogether too amazing and ideal to be plausible but on further investigation this turned out to be not only feasible but something they had already achieved. A catalytic converter is used to extract the carbon dioxide and hydrogen from the water and converts the gases into a liquid hydrocarbon fuel at a 92% efficiency rate. This fuel not only comes with an unlimited raw material supply but is also estimated to cost around the same as current fossil fuels, suggesting that in the future this could really be a viable alternative to the latter.

Salt water battery power

A little closer to home, well on land anyway, there has been development of a technology that could see the end of fossil fuels used in the everyday motor vehicle. A company called NanoFlowCell AG have been developing a battery that could revolutionise the automotive industry. They have developed a battery that uses salt water mixed with metallic salts to create an electrochemical reaction, known as a flow cell battery. These batteries are said to be 20 times more efficient than lead-acid batteries and 5 times more efficient than lithium-ion batteries. The company has developed a car known as the Quant e-sportlimousine which has been approved for road testing in Germany. Although it’s not yet available to the general public the technology has been proven and could pave the way other companies to jump on board to help create the infrastructure required for this kind of change to our transportation system.

The future of salt water technology

Although the above two advancements are still in development that doesn’t mean that this technology won’t get off the ground. In fact it is already being used to store renewable energy such as solar and wind in both small and large applications including Spain's Gemasolar CSP (concentrated solar power) station. On a smaller scale these batteries are being used in portable recharging devices for mobile phones and tablets from companies like myFC, allowing charging of your phone with water while off the grid. While the development of this technology hasn’t made it into everyday devices it appears that this could potentially be a viable solution to toxic lead and acid based batteries. For more information about this or if you need assistance developing new technology please contact us here in Melbourne on +613 9413 9000 or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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 Spain's Gemasolar stores daylight energy in molten salt