New Cheap Graphene Filters Can Make Even Seawater Safe to Drink

Even Seawater is becoming drinkable with this new filter

GraphAir, a new type of graphene developed in Australia, can remove salt and contaminants from water in one easy step.

Autor*in Ana Galán Herranz, 02.27.18

GraphAir, a new type of graphene developed in Australia, can remove salt and contaminants from water in one easy step.

According to statistics from the WHO, around 3 in 10 people worldwide (a whole 2.1 billion people) lack access to safe, readily available water at home. CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) scientists, in Australia, have now come up with a new type of graphene that can purify water in a cheap, simple and effective way.

Graphene is a carbon material, just one atom thick, and usually very expensive and tricky to make, using explosive compressed gases and vacuum processing. This version, made using soybean oil, is much easier and cheaper to produce than usual graphene but retains graphene’s usual properties, making it much more commercially viable.

GraphAir is the name they’ve given to this material – a thin film with nano-channels that allow water to pass through but not pollutants. “In Graphair we’ve found a perfect filter for water purification. It can replace the complex, time consuming and multi-stage processes currently needed with a single step,” said CSIRO scientist Dr Dong Han Seo in a press release. He is also the lead author of a paper on GraphAir submitted and published in Nature Communications.

The paper shows the results of the different experiments using both a GraphAir biofilm sheet and a normal filter on polluted seawater from Sydney harbour. “Conventional water filter membranes used in water purification are made from polymers (plastics) and cannot handle a diverse mix of contaminants; they clog or allow contaminants to pass through, so they have to be separated out before the water is filtered,” the paper states.

When used by itself, a water filtration membrane becomes coated with contaminants, blocking the pores that allow the water through, but when the GraphAir membrane is added, it can clean even the highly polluted water from the Sydney port in one step. It continued to remove 99 per cent of contaminants, even when coated with pollutants “All that’s needed is heat, our graphene, a membrane filter and a small water pump. We’re hoping to commence field trials in a developing world community next year,” said Dong Han Seo.

According to WHO data, around 500,000 people die yearly from illnesses after drinking polluted water, most of them children. Consuming contaminated drinking water can cause diarrheal diseases (cholera, dysentery, polio, typhoid) and parasites, such as giardia, which can be lethal in areas with limited access to medical care. This technology could help to provide safe drinking water to those regions in a fast, cheap and sustainable way.

TAGGED WITH
WE! Hub: Rural Kenya’s One-Stop-Shop for Water and Electricity

When it comes to sustainable development, access to clean electricity can be just as important as clean water. The WE! Hub delivers both to those who need it most.

WADI: The Gadget Helping Communities Disinfect Water With the Power of the Sun

The solar-powered WADI tells communities when their water is safe to drink, reducing illness and carbon emissions at the same time.For around 660 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America, access to fresh, clean water is not something they can take for granted, with communities often needing to take extra steps to ensure their drinking water is thoroughly disinfected.

Singapore’s Latest Addition to the Fight Against Polluted Waterways? A Flock of Robot Swans

Singapore has come up with an unique new way of ensuring the safety of its reservoirs and lakes - a team of elegant floating robots.

These Parisians Are Splashing Into Water Heated by Servers

Fancy swimming in an eco-friendly pool, heated using the waste energy used to produce your favourite animated movie?

RECUP: The Coffee Cup Share System Set to Take Over Berlin

Europe is a continent of coffee drinkers and our need for a convenient caffeine kick has one very obvious negative side effect - the ever-growing mountain of discarded one-use coffee cups. In Germany at least, they might have come up with a solution. RECUP is a simple reusable coffee cup sharing system, and it's rolling out across the country.

Never Read Another Food Label Again! This App Wants to Do the Work for You

Is that apple really organic? What is actually in that face cream? The new "HawkSpex mobile" app from the Fraunhofer Institute uses the existing technology inside your smartphone to check the credentials of all kinds of different products.