How to pronounce "salts"

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Translator: Timothy Covell Reviewer: Morton Bast

I collaborate with bacteria.

And I'm about to show you

some stop-motion footage that I made recently

where you'll see bacteria accumulating minerals

from their environment

over the period of an hour.

So what you're seeing here

is the bacteria metabolizing,

and as they do so

they create an electrical charge.

And this attracts metals

from their local environment.

And these metals accumulate as minerals

on the surface of the bacteria.

One of the most pervasive problems

in the world today for people

is inadequate access

to clean drinking water.

And the desalination process

is one where we take out salts.

We can use it for drinking and agriculture.

Removing the salts from water --

particularly seawater --

through reverse osmosis

is a critical technique

for countries who do not have access to clean drinking water

around the globe.

So seawater reverse osmosis

is a membrane-filtration technology.

We take the water from the sea

and we apply pressure.

And this pressure forces the seawater

through a membrane.

This takes energy,

producing clean water.

But we're also left with a concentrated salt solution, or brine.

But the process is very expensive

and it's cost-prohibitive for many countries around the globe.

And also, the brine that's produced

is oftentimes just pumped back out into the sea.

And this is detrimental to the local ecology

of the sea area that it's pumped back out into.

So I work in Singapore at the moment,

and this is a place that's really a leading place

for desalination technology.

And Singapore proposes by 2060

to produce [900] million liters per day

of desalinated water.

But this will produce an equally massive amount

of desalination brine.

And this is where my collaboration with bacteria comes into play.

So what we're doing at the moment

is we're accumulating metals

like calcium, potassium and magnesium

from out of desalination brine.

And this, in terms of magnesium

and the amount of water that I just mentioned,

equates to a $4.5 billion

mining industry for Singapore --

a place that doesn't have any natural resources.

So I'd like you to image a mining industry

in a way that one hasn't existed before;

imagine a mining industry

that doesn't mean defiling the Earth;

imagine bacteria helping us do this

by accumulating and precipitating

and sedimenting minerals

out of desalination brine.

And what you can see here

is the beginning of an industry in a test tube,

a mining industry that is in harmony with nature.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Phonetic Breakdown of "salts"

Learn how to break down "salts" into its phonetic components. Understanding syllables and phonetics helps with pronunciation, spelling, and language learning.

IPA Phonetic Pronunciation:

S AO1 L T S

Standard phonetic transcription to help with precise pronunciation

Pronunciation Tips:

Stress the first syllable
Pay attention to vowel sounds
Practice each syllable separately

Spelling Benefits:

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Helps with word recognition
Improves reading fluency

Definition of "salts"

Noun

A common substance, chemically consisting mainly of sodium chloride (NaCl), used extensively as a condiment and preservative.
One of the compounds formed from the reaction of an acid with a base, where a positive ion replaces a hydrogen of the acid.
A salt marsh, a saline marsh at the shore of a sea.
A sailor (also old salt).
Randomly chosen bytes added to a plaintext message prior to encrypting or hashing it, in order to render brute-force decryption more difficult.
A person who seeks employment at a company in order to (once employed by it) help unionize it.
Flavour; taste; seasoning.
Piquancy; wit; sense.

Example: "Attic salt"
A dish for salt at table; a salt cellar.
Skepticism and common sense.
Indignation; outrage; arguing.

Verb

To add salt to.

Example: "to salt fish, beef, or pork; to salt the city streets in the winter"
To deposit salt as a saline solution.

Example: "The brine begins to salt."
To fill with salt between the timbers and planks, as a ship, for the preservation of the timber.
To insert or inject something into an object to give it properties it would not naturally have.
To include colorful language in.
To add filler bytes before encrypting, in order to make brute-force decryption more resource-intensive.