1-Step to Great Water

 

Here’s an example of where science has produced a product that will help solve one of the biggest problems in sustainability: Finding a source for high-quality potable drinking water.  Given the problems many communities are having with contamination of their urban water quality – such as problems with lead or arsenic or mercury – this filtering system may be a huge benefit to millions … even those who live by the sea.

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Graphene filter makes even

Sydney Harbour water

drinkable

 

Michael Irving

Nature Communications

February 15th, 2018

 

Among graphene’s long list of superpowers, filtering water may be one of the most directly beneficial. Now a team of Australian scientists has demonstrated how effective a specially-designed form of graphene can be at purifying water with a pretty challenging test:

 

The filter made water from Sydney

Harbour safe to drink in one step.

 

As well as being extremely strong and an excellent conductor of heat and electricity, graphene has proven itself to be an effective water filter. These devices could take the form of biofilm sheets floating on top of dirty or salty water, which absorb and purify the water. Other methods include a graphene-oxide membrane that can filter even the smallest salts out of water without impeding the flow.

The newest graphene water filter system was made using a form of the material dubbed “Graphair,” which was developed last year by a team at the CSIRO. Graphene is normally created using an energy-intensive process of chemical vapor deposition onto metal substrates, but Graphair is made from soybean oil, an inexpensive and renewable material.

In the new study, the team coated a commercial water filter with a thin film of Graphair, which contains microscopic nano-channels that block contaminants while allowing water to pass through. To really put it to the test, they ran samples of water from the heavily-polluted Sydney Harbour through these filters, some with a layer of Graphair and some without. After just one pass, the Graphair filters had purified the water to a drinkable standard.

Dong Han Seo, lead author on a paper describing the project, says:

 

“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. All that’s needed is heat, our graphene,

a membrane filter and a small water pump.”

 

The Graphair filters also managed to keep their filtration rate higher for longer. One of the main problems with regular filters is that the unwanted material tends to build up on the membrane, eventually slowing down the rate that water can pass through. In these tests, the team found that after 72 hours, filters in the control group were only half as effective as they’d been initially. The Graphair filters didn’t have this problem, with membranes 4 cm2 (0.6 in2) in size processing about 0.5 liters (17 oz) per day.

The researchers say they hope to start field trials of the Graphair water filters in developing countries next year. In the long run, the technology could be scaled up to clean a home or town’s water supply, and may eventually be used to filter seawater and industrial wastewater on a large scale.

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Stephan Schwartz, publisher of the free, online trend publication, “Schwartz Report,” has a frequent saying: “Water is destiny.” Without a supply of quality water, cities and farms and, in history, entire civilizations vanish.  While this research doesn’t technically address water supply, as most of the world lives within fifty miles of a sea, and as this process can make filthy sea water potable, it does make a significant contribution to our ability to sustain.

That’s the good news.

The bad news: I don’t know where you can buy such a filter.

I phoned a local company, Commonwealth H2O, that’s provided our Garden Atrium homes with their water systems. The owner, Greg Thayer – a serious expert on water quality who attends virtually all conferences on water – was intrigued by the research finding, but didn’t know where to commercially get a Graphair filter.  In Googling “Graphair,” I did find one statement:

 

“The CSIRO will scale its GraphAir production

in 2018 before identifying potential commercial

partners to make the product available globally.”

 

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an independent agency of the Australian Federal Government responsible for scientific research in Australia.  As a research organization, this seems like the process they’ll need to go through to make any developments commercially available. And it sounds as though they are doing just that, and right now.  Greg said he’d let me know as soon as he identified a source for these filters.  And when he tells me … I’ll tell you.

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Remember … if you haven’t already done so, you can download a pdf of my new sustainability book, “The Challenge of Change,” simply by clicking on the following hyperlink:

 

http://www.gardenatriums.com/thechallengeofchange.htm

 

The book is absolutely free, with no strings attached. It’s part of my effort to cause as widespread a change to sustainable living as possible.

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