Our sample worked around several thousand times faster than typical industrial devices, and around 2,400 times faster than experimental carbon nanotube-based desalination devices.”Īs fluorine is electrically negative, it repels negative ions such as the chlorine found in salt. “The real surprise to me was how fast the process occurred. The smaller of our test channels perfectly rejected incoming salt molecules, and the larger channels too were still an improvement over other desalination techniques and even cutting-edge carbon nanotube filters,” said Itoh. “It was very exciting to see the results firsthand. Itoh and his colleagues evaluated the presence of chlorine ions, one of the major components of salt (the other being sodium), on either side of the test membrane to determine the effectiveness of their membranes. A human hair is almost 100,000 nanometers wide for comparison. They developed multiple test samples with nanorings ranging in size from 1 to 2 nanometers. The researchers developed test filtration membranes by chemically manufacturing nanoscopic fluorine rings that were stacked and implanted in an otherwise impenetrable lipid layer, similar to the organic molecules found in cell walls. Both methods require a lot of energy, but our tests suggest fluorous nanochannels require little energy and have other benefits too.” “There are two main ways to desalinate water currently: thermally, using heat to evaporate seawater so it condenses as pure water, or by reverse osmosis, which uses pressure to force water through a membrane that blocks salt. And, after running some complex computer simulations, we decided it was worth the time and effort to create a working sample,” said Itoh. “We were curious to see how effective a fluorous nanochannel might be at selectively filtering different compounds, in particular, water and salt. Reducing the energy and thus financial cost, as well as improving the simplicity of water desalination, could help communities around the world with poor access to safe drinking water. These fluorous nanochannels are more effective than conventional desalination technologies because they operate quicker, use less pressure, are a more effective filter, and use less energy. Researchers have successfully filtered salt from water for the first time using fluorine-based nanostructures. A desalination plant converts about half of the water it receives into drinkable water.Īlthough seawater desalination is a well-established way of producing drinking water, it comes with a high energy cost. Water desalination is the process of removing salt from seawater to produce fresh water that can be processed further and safely used. One technology designed to help produce more freshwater is desalination plants.
Water covers 70% of Earth, so it is easy to assume that it will always be abundant. In Africa alone, it is estimated that about 230 million people will face water shortages by 2025, with up to 460 million living in water-stressed regions. Water scarcity is a growing problem around the globe. The future of desalination: Using a Teflon-like membrane to purify water A new study, published in Science on May 12th, 2022, found a new method to purify water that is 2400 times faster than even experimental carbon nanotube-based desalination devices.
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