New Plastic to Cut CO2 Emissions and Purify Water 120
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers have lots of imagination. After developing plastic as solid as steel, other scientists from in Australia, Korea and in the U.S. have created a plastic which could cut CO2 emissions and purify water. Their new material mimics pores found in plants and is exceptionally efficient. As said one of the lead researchers, 'it can separate carbon dioxide from natural gas a few hundred times faster than current plastic membranes and its performance is four times better in terms of purity of the separated gas.' Now it remains to be seen if commercial companies are interested, either for water desalination or for natural gas processing plants."
obligatory charlie brown (Score:2, Insightful)
What I want to know is ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying Nature (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, those who innovate turn once again to Parental Nature for inspiration; not entirely surprising seeing Parental Nature either has:
I just hope enough of Parental Nature is around the place for long enough before we lose the wealth of knowledge and technology which we can copy.
They mean it's not a liquid, gas, or plasma (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:'Nah', say industry groups. (Score:3, Insightful)
There _are_ other issues with desalination, other than cost. Like, what do you do with the salty brine by-product? Tip it back into the ocean? That could cause environmental problems.
Still, on a small scale, a cheap and efficient desalination product would be brilliant! I'd certainly buy a handheld version, when I go camping near the ocean.
Re:Editorial Sensationalism (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Editorial Sensationalism: not necessarily (Score:2, Insightful)