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."
Holy moly (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember when this theoretical technology was proposed about a year ago, and figured it would be a decade before they could actually do it.
Cheap desalinization and filtration would mean an end to one of the biggest world health problems(safe drinking water), and could improve world-wide standards of living dramatically.
Re:Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Very similar article [slashdot.org] was published half a year ago. Is there something new now?
It's gone from "A group of MIT researchers" to "Lockheed Martin", the latter of which could actually make it commercially available.