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Desalination for Kids - What is Desalination?

Have you ever swum in the sea and accidentally swallowed some sea water?
It probably made you gag and cough. Sea water contains a lot of salt and this makes it very unpleasant to taste, as well as unhealthy to drink.
If you were to drink salt water, you would become thirsty.
Do you know why?
You already have lots of salt in your body— everybody has!
If you take in even more, you would feel the need to drink some liquid to water down, or dilute, the extra salt.
We can make good use of both the water and the salt in the sea, but we need to separate them first.

People in some countries in the world are so short of fresh water that they are even thinking about towing icebergs from Arctic regions to their own dry lands!
Ninety-seven per cent of the world's water is found in the oceans and seas.
Fresh water can be made by taking salt out of sea water.

Desalination process

This process, called desalination, is expensive because it needs large amounts of energy, and the salt wears away the equipment.
Saudi Arabia produces over 442 million gallons (1.7 billion liters) of fresh water each day by desalination.
In the desalination process, the salt water is boiled and quickly turned into steam. The steam then condenses into fresh water.
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