New Process For Nanoscale Filtration Holds Promise of Cheap, Clean Water 116
New submitter Spinnakker writes "Lockheed Martin, traditionally known for its development of military systems and aircraft, has developed a process for perforating graphene (carbon sheets only one atom thick) that could potentially reduce the energy required for desalination by two orders of magnitude. The process tailors the hole size to the molecules being separated. In the case of desalination, one would create holes in the graphene large enough to allow water to pass but small enough to block the salt molecules. The advantage to using graphene comes from how extremely thin the material is compared to traditional filters. The thinner the filter, the less energy is required to facilitate reverse osmosis."
Re:Holy moly (Score:4, Informative)
No bacteria would pass though due to size, so coagulation not necessary. Chlorination also not necessary.
So what does that leave, purification of certain compounds which happen to be smaller than H2O? (likely a mild chemical treatment process judging by other filtration techniques.) Since this is a desalination filter process seems safe to assume anything above Ng on the perdioc table would not pass through ( I am not a chemist by trade so please correct me if I am wrong). This leaves H He Li Be Bo C N O Fl Ne to be worried about from a chemical standpoint after filtration.
So what really is left after passing through graphene?
Re:Holy moly (Score:5, Informative)
i don't think its feasible collecting rain water straight from the sky though
Sure it is, people have been doing it for millenia: Brief Outline of the History of Rainwater Catchment Technologies [ernet.in]
Plenty of research is being conducted on modern approaches to rainwater harvesting. In the developed world these often come into conflict with environmental regulations regarding water quality, and in general there's a surfeit of water from other sources that is ran through central filtration facilities so no great press is on to tap rainwater as a major source. It's something popular with people who are interested in green tech and the like.
Re:Holy moly (Score:5, Informative)
It makes more sense to use this to filter out municipal waste water and re-use it for drinking water. It's right there where you need it, it's got less junk to get out than seawater, and there is less byproduct. The only problem with that is people don't like the idea of drinking their own sewage, even if it has been filtered well.
Not to be a wet graphene blanket: this is a very good thing, you're absolutely right that it will improve the standard of living worldwide if it pans out, and we do need better filtration technology. Just that we shouldn't forget the ecological concerns.
Clean water is going to become a huge problem. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Holy moly (Score:5, Informative)
Holes in membranes are a fact of life. The reason they aren't crucial for desalinization is that you don't need ion free water for it to be potable. In fact it's common to add ions back in after desalination because pure water is much more corrosive than typical drinking water.
Disease organisms are a different issue altogether.
Post treatment growth of micro-organisms is a fact of life. Some sort of treatment with a residual action is absolutely needed. Usually this is chlorine or chlorine compounds. Maybe in a home system you can get away without it but certainly not in a municipal water system.
This isn't new knowledge folks. People have been doing this for decades.
http://www.fwrj.com/techarticles/1109%20fwrj_tech1.pdf [fwrj.com]
Re:Holy moly (Score:4, Informative)
what does that leave, purification of certain compounds which happen to be smaller than H2O. ... This leaves H He Li Be Bo C N O Fl Ne
He & Ne aren't a problem - 1) they're a gas, and He, at least, is sparingly soluble in water, so it'll all bubble off. 2) They're as inert as they get, so wouldn't make much of a difference even if they were in the water.
C N O - Aren't found as mono-atomic atoms. Will always be in larger molecules, which for the most part are larger than water.
H Li Be B F - Found as monoatomic species, but only as ions. With ions you always get a shell of hydration around them, and it's a significant amount of work to strip that away. Effectively, you don't have a Li+ on its own, you have a Li+(H2O)x complex, which by necessity will be bigger than a single water molecule
The only thing you'd be worried about are small, neutral molecules. Something like methane might be a problem, but if you have methane in your source water, you probably know it, and will have some other pre-treatment to deal with it specially.