Distillation desalination is one of mankind’s earliest forms of water treatment, and it is still a popular treatment solution throughout the world today. In ancient times, many civilizations used this process on their ships to convert sea water into drinking water.

Reverse-osmosis desalination was invented in California in the 1950s. “Some 80 percent of domestic water use in Israeli cities comes from desalinated water.”

Desalination has been used for thousands of years, as Greek sailors used to boil water to evaporate fresh water away from the salt, and Romans used clay filters to trap salt. Today’s sophisticated methods still generally use the concepts of distillation or filtration.

The problem is that the desalination of water requires a lot of energy. Salt dissolves very easily in water, forming strong chemical bonds, and those bonds are difficult to break. Energy and the technology to desalinate water are both expensive, and this means that desalinating water can be pretty costly.

Desalination is the process of turning salty ocean water into drinking water. These countries also have hardly any groundwater or fresh water sources so desalination is a case of innovation by necessity. These countries make up the one percent of the world currently relying on desalination to meet water needs.

Sperm whales live all over the world, meaning deposits of ambergris could be found floating on any ocean or washed up on most shorelines. But it is uncommon, found in less than 5% of whale carcasses.

The Arctic Ocean’s salinity varies seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes; but it is the lowest on average due to low evaporation and heavy freshwater inflow from rivers.