Engineering News
“Newly created sieve could make seawater drinkable”
Date : 04-Feb-2019
Newly created sieve could make seawater drinkable
Image Credit: Abdelrahman Al-Attili, from the University of Southampton
Graphene-oxide membranes have attracted considerable attention as promising candidates for new filtration technologies. Scientists from the University of Manchester have created a sieve (a graphene-oxide membrane) that can filter common salts, providing drinking water from seawater. It has already demonstrated that the graphene-oxide membrane has an ability to filter small nanoparticles, organic molecules and large salts. However, common salts removed in desalination technologies have been too small to be filtered. These membranes usually swell when they are exposed to water but the researchers have found a way to prevent this, maintaining the uniformity of the pore size. Due to the changes implemented by the scientists the graphene membrane allows only water to pass though, filtering out common salts in addition to larger molecules. When common salts are dissolved in water, a shell of water molecules are formed around them. The tiny capillaries of the membrane allow water to pass through, leaving salt and other impurities behind.
News Sources: LN Laboratory News
Reference/Link:https://www.labnews.co.uk/news/newly-created-sieve-make-seawater-drinkable-03-05-2017/