Desalination due to Electrical Image Forces

Abstract

It will be shown that for a solution of salt dissolved in water in contact with a metallic wall, the concentration of salt ions (both positive and negative) within a few Angstroms of the wall can be large enough to exceed the solubility limit of the salt, as a result of electrical image charge forces. In addition, since the dielectric constant of water increases from 2.1 at the wall to 81 at about a nanometer from a solid wall, there will be an attractive image potential near the plane on which this increase of the dielectric constant occurs. The possible existence of these image potentials suggests that the salt can be removed from the water by making salt water flow between an array of parallel solid plates..

7 pages, one figure

References in corpus (4)

• Anomalously low dielectric constant of confined water
• Nanoscale capillary freezing of ionic liquids confined between metallic interfaces and the role of electronic screening
• On the theoretical description of weakly charged surfaces
• Surface Tension of Acid Solutions: Fluctuations beyond the Non-linear Poisson-Boltzmann Theory