Battery Turns Saltwater Into Drinking Water

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers have developed a battery that can remove sodium and chloride ions from seawater. In theory, their invention could be far more energy efficient than thermal desalination or reverse osmosis. This would cut the cost of using salt water for drinking or irrigation. It could also be used to make compact desalination systems for boats and life rafts, or crops. Each battery is made with manganese oxide nanorod electrodes, which absorb sodium when an electrical current passes through them. When the current is reversed, they dump the sodium ions out into waste water."

Re:How much energy?

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Any scientific study to back that up? e.g. proof that total amount of "good minerals" excreted in urine per day is more when you drink pure water. AFAIK if I drink RO water, I pee more often, but the pee is clearer in colour and if I'm losing more sodium that's a plus not a minus - since I'm a sedentary person who probably consumes more sodium than the RDA, and I'm not an athlete.

Passing pure water through plumbing is a bad idea since it would dissolve all sorts of bad stuff (some places still have lead pipes so they need "hard water") and then you'd drink it... And drinking pure water without taking enough salts and minerals in your diet would cause problems. But that doesn't prove it's bad for you. That's like saying fruits are bad for you because you're not getting enough calcium from them.

And I've had RO and distilled water that wasn't actually pure - some had the taste of acetone, some had some other weird acrid taste. So if the study is not done correctly with actually pure water you might be poisoning the animal/human with the impurities. The problems might not be the pure water.

You want enough minerals, eat more sardines with bones for calcium and a potato/banana for potassium.