Mark Miodownik

I'm not sure it really is going to do the job.

A, it's very expensive.

It comes basically the same place that salt comes from.

The oceans have all these minerals dissolved in it, but the most common are sodium and chloride.

When this water is evaporated, you get salt crystals.

In that are some potassium ions, which you can separate, but now we don't have any of those salt crystals.

So all the salt mines are suddenly all hollowed out and there's a tiny amount of potassium chloride there.

No.

It's still a very important substance in the care industry, not least for saline drips, basically salty drip.

And it's a very important reagent for those hospitals to keep people alive.

And it will be not as simple as just taking seawater because seawater contains all sorts of other bacteria and other things.

So they'll have to have worked out how to get rid of all of the extra stuff in the seawater.

Industry is really struggling.

Soap making and paper making need sodium hydroxide.

Now, where does sodium hydroxide come from?

Answer, you get salt water and you electrolyse it and you get the sodium hydroxide out of that.

And when you electrolyse salt water, you get chlorine gas out.

And chlorine gas is the key ingredient for hydrochloric acid.

As soon as you don't have hydrochloric acid...

All of those industries, making plastics, making electronics, making pretty much everything in your house, they all are going to stop operating very quickly.