Sea ice seen as a disaster in northeast China's Bohai Bay has been eyed as an important alternative freshwater source by Chinese scientists, as their latest research shows China's desalination technology is feasible for mass production.

"The salinity of desalinated sea ice can reach 150 mg/L, when 5 tonnes of sea ice is treated per hour through our lab equipment. The result is on a par with salt levels in many of China's rivers," said Chen Weibin, one of the researchers of the sea ice desalination program based in Dalian City, northeast China's Liaoning Province.

Chen is also head of the Marine Environmental Dynamics Lab under the China Marine Environment Monitoring Center.

He said the program has attracted a group of scientists from the center as well as Beijing Normal University and Tianjin University.

China's Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea this year were hit by the worst ice in 30 years lasting from early January to the middle of March.

"The salinity of the sea water in the Bohai Bay is 3,200 mg/L. However, when the water is frozen, the rate drops to 600-800 mg/L. Our equipment can further reduce the salinity," said Gu Wei, a professor with Beijing Normal University, who is involved in the research.

If commercially adopted, the technology is expected to help quench the thirsty north China, where per capita availability of fresh water is only between 100 and 300 cubic meters annually, compared with 500 cubic meters - a United Nations criteria for water scarcity, said Gu.

So far, the program has led to the development of a sea ice collecting machine, which can gather 1,000 cubic meters of floating sea ice per hour.

The program has attracted interest from companies in China, Singapore and America, he said.

Gu said Bohai Bay where water from many rivers flows into, including China's second largest Yellow River, has low salinity compared with the other seas off China's coasts. It was feasible to build a freshwater tank in the bay to collect the desalinated sea ice using the new technology, he added.

The scientists said that the technology may be first applied by big industrial water users.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2010)