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Alithographica β Science Fact Friday: Salt Glands
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Published: 2017-06-17 18:18:02 +0000 UTC; Views: 2958; Favourites: 91; Downloads: 16
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Some people have noticed that this is a pretty efficient process and have asked if we can develop a technology based on this to improve our own desalination efforts...buuut I havenβt been able to find anyone who has actually looked into it further. If you find any info, Iβd love to hear it!
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Comments: 24
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Really cool, this drawing looks like the kind you would actually see in a book demonstrating science like this, for example animal books, and one encyclopedia I think I used to have.
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Thanks! That's the goal. : D
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Cool!! It somehow clicked in my brain that I heard that the stuff that comes out of the beak-nostrils of sea birds helped get rid of extra salt. (Or my brain is trying to be a smart aliec (ok I don't know how to spell that help me ;w;
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Haha, it's "smart aleck". c:
I actually didn't know about it until a college animal physiology course!
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Aside from some commercial hype which I have not confirmed, there does seem to be significant research in process.
Wikipedia has a readable paragraph on reverse osmosis desalinization. ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalina⦠)
Folks interested in a more technical discussion may find this interesting: ( www.nature.com/articles/srep25β¦ ) ("Enhanced Salt Removal by Unipolar Ion Conduction in Ion Concentration Polarization Desalination;" Rhokyun Kwak, Van Sang Pham, Bumjoo Kim, Lan Chen & Jongyoon Han; Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 25349 (received January 18, 2016; accepted April 11, 2016; published online: May 9, 2016))
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Reverse osmosis is a super cool technology but is a bit different from what goes on in salt glands (to my admittedly incomplete understanding - could be wrong!) Salt glands do employ some regular osmosis, but both osmosis and reverse osmosis rely on moving the /water/ rather than the ions. What makes salt glands interesting is that they're actually moving the ions themselves.
Something else cool that I didn't fit into the infographic: This process is quite energy efficient. The ions involved in the pump generate some of the energy needed to make the organs work. Reverse osmosis is really, really energy inefficient because we're forcing water to go against the natural concentration gradient - it's a great technology but it's not currently used for mass desalination (eg. providing global drinking water) because it's so expensive. I was wondering if we had somehow looked into replicating the ion channels used in salt glands as a better, less-expensive route.
That Nature article looks promising though! I'll have to dig into it when I feel like using my brain properly. Thanks! c:
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Thank you for the clarification - - - and letting me know that there's more to learn.
I remain impressed at how energy efficient biological systems are.
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Same - they're really remarkable. I love how no matter what we do, mother nature still has something to teach us.
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Fascinating - I have never heard of this.Β Β Do you know what mechanism the salt gland uses to pull the ions out of the blood?Β That would be amazing if it could be used.
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I'll probably do a comprehensive sci fact on channels at some point but the short of it is this: The blood enters the gland through an artery which then splits into many (let's say hundreds, idk how many) smaller arteries. This increases the contact between each artery and the tubes of the salt gland, and also means each 'arm' of the gland is only responsible for a small unit of blood at any given time.
There's a layer of epithelial cells between each artery and the tube of the salt gland. Normally ions like sodium and chloride can't just enter a cell, but it CAN pass through a specialized channel on the surface of the cell. So when the body senses it has excess sodium in the blood, the nervous system signals the channels, the channels open, ions are exchanged, and the salt is transported from the blood to the epithelial cell to the tube.
Simplified but hopefully that was clear?
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Wow - thanks. Β Β It certainly helps
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That's amazing!!! I love learning stuff like this about birds. So cool.
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Birds are aliens, honestly haha
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I love you for these. I learn more from you and other people than I ever did in school!
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Haha that's a tragic statement on the state of our education system but I'm glad to be providing cool info!
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And it's something I doubt will be fixed anytime soon I'm afraid. However, your SFFs are my favorite thing to keep me educated on DA. Fantastic work!
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Thanks! Happy to keep providing. c:
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