Australian Floating Sea Farms Possible Solution to Water Shortages

In a research, a team from the Future Industries Institute at the University of South Australia (UniSA) said the self-sustaining solar-driven system could help address a looming global shortage of fresh water.

According to the study, the system evaporates seawater and recycles it into freshwater using two chambers; an upper layer similar to a greenhouse and a lower layer to harvest water, which is then condensed and transferred to a plant growth chamber.

In a field test, researchers Haolan Xu and Gary Owens successfully used the farm to grow broccoli, lettuce and pak choi crops on seawater surfaces without maintenance or additional irrigation.

Xu, who studied at the Nanjing University of Technology and the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences before joining UniSA in 2011, said in a media release issued on Monday that the system has several advantages over other solar sea farm designs.

"Other designs have installed evaporators inside the growth chamber which takes up valuable space that could otherwise be used for plant growth. Also, these systems are prone to overheating and crop death," he said.

"In our design, the vertical distribution of evaporator and growth chambers decreases the device's overall footprint, maximizing the area for food production. It is fully automated, low cost, and extremely easy to operate, using only solar energy and seawater to produce clean water and grow crops."

Owens said in the release that the next step is to scale up the design.

"It is not inconceivable that sometime in the future, you might see huge farm biodomes floating on the ocean, or multiple smaller devices deployed over a large sea area," he said.

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