Clean, pure drinking water is one of the most scarce commodities in the world today. With the growth of the global population the pressure on drinking water is only going to increase. So wouldn’t it be nice if we could convert salty water (the kind available in oceans) to drinking water?

While such science projects have been successful in the past, they have all required great amounts of energy to work. This expenditure on energy needs had made the water thus processed way too expensive to be economically viable on a large scale. The researchers at MIT have been considering this problem and have come up with the perfect solution for energy requirements – Solar Power.

A desalination process called electrodialysis which is powered by solar energy can be used to provide enough clean drinking water to supply the needs of an entire village. Natasha Wright and Amos Winters are researchers with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are working on a science project involving solar panels and saline underground water in Indian villages.

Electrodialysis may just be the creative answer to drinking problem shortage in underdeveloped countries where power grids do not extend to small isolated villages. What remains to be seen is how this project can be set up in under developed nations with minimum cost.