[ppf]

It's incredibly disappointing to see MIT put its name to some apparently PhD-level research that claims over-unity efficiency, and apparently (according to the picture) using a few baking trays and tinfoil.

It also does not explain how to deal with the increased salination of the water source, nor how water can continue to condense on the successive layers of the device as they are heated due to that condensation.

[linschn]

This is for small scale, family-sized units, where power and cost are the limiting factor, so brine will not be an issue at this scale.

As for condensation, the plate is hot, but colder that the vapor, and heated by the vapor only, so when it is too hot, condensation stops, the temperature drops quickly due to evaporation on the other side, and condensation can continue.

At equilibrium, each successive plate is colder than the next, the last one using the sea water as a heat sink.

This is actually innovative and the optimization of the design parameters (e.g. The distance between the plates) is not trivial.

I think you are overly dismissive of this solid piece of engineering.