Abstract
This paper proposes to manipulate the thickness of the electro-double-layer (EDL) inside the anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) nanochannels as a virtual filter to select uni-ions for desalination through electrical static charges. Due to the electric static sieving effect at larger channel diameter (~100 nm), the power consumption is much less than those by tradition methods, such as reverse-osmosis (RO) and electrodialysis (ED) which need to function in much smaller nano pores or channels of 1 nm. This method has demonstrated the desalination rate at 55% and the pumping power consumption is estimated 0.2 kwh, which is decreased 1 order to that by RO method.