# Rochester Scientists Unveil Zero-Waste Solar Desalination That Turns Seawater Into Drinking Water and Mines Lithium

*2026-05-30 18:01 UTC · Science · 2 min read*

> University of Rochester laser-etched black-metal panels turn seawater into fresh water with zero brine waste, capturing nearly all salt as solids and recovering 50% of lithium.

Researchers at the University of Rochester have demonstrated a solar-powered desalination system that converts ocean water into fresh drinking water while leaving behind no brine waste. The team, led by optics professor Chunlei Guo, built panels from aluminum foil etched with femtosecond lasers, making the black-metal surface both intensely light-absorbing and superwicking, so it pulls a thin film of water uphill and evaporates it using sunlight alone, with no chemical additives.

The breakthrough tackles desalination's biggest real-world flaw: salt clogging. Most systems choke when run on actual seawater, but the Rochester panel uses the "coffee ring" effect to push crystallized salt to passive edge regions, self-cleaning the active surface and collecting nearly 100% of the salts as solids instead of dumping concentrated brine back into the ocean. In tests on Great Salt Lake samples, the device also recovered about 50% of the lithium, a metal critical for batteries.

With an estimated 2.2 billion people lacking safely managed drinking water and traditional desalination damaging marine ecosystems with brine discharge, the researchers say the inherently scalable design could improve global water access while building more sustainable supply chains for precious minerals. The findings were published May 27 in the journal Light: Science & Applications.

## Sources

- [techxplore.com](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-05-solar-powered-desalination-ocean.html)
- [nature.com](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-026-02315-4)
- [rochester.edu](https://www.rochester.edu/newscenter/what-is-desalination-definition-ocean-water-704732/)

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TechTools News · https://techtools.cz/tools/news/article/1742-rochester-scientists-unveil-zero-waste-solar-desalination-that-turns-seawater
Česká verze: https://techtools.cz/tools/news/clanek/1815-vedci-z-rochesteru-predstavili-solarni-odsolovani-bez-odpadu-meni-morskou-vodu