Posted on 03/30/2017 9:32:52 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Enhanced single-walled carbon nanotubes offer a more effective and sustainable approach to water treatment and remediation than the standard industry materials—silicon gels and activated carbon—according to a paper published in the March issue of Environmental Science Water: Research and Technology.
RIT researchers John-David Rocha and Reginald Rogers, authors of the study, demonstrate the potential of this emerging technology to clean polluted water. Their work applies carbon nanotubes to environmental problems in a specific new way that builds on a nearly two decades of nanomaterial research. Nanotubes are more commonly associated with fuel-cell research.
“This aspect is new—taking knowledge of carbon nanotubes and their properties and realizing, with new processing and characterization techniques, the advantages nanotubes can provide for removing contaminants for water,” said Rocha, assistant professor in the School of Chemistry and Materials Science in RIT’s College of Science.
Rocha and Rogers are advancing nanotube technology for environmental remediation and water filtration for home use.
“We have shown that we can regenerate these materials,” said Rogers, assistant professor of chemical engineering in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering. “In the future, when your water filter finally gets saturated, put it in the microwave for about five minutes and the impurities will get evaporated off.”
Carbon nanotubes are storage units measuring about 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. Carbon reduced to the nanoscale defies the rules of physics and operates in a world of quantum mechanics in which small materials become mighty.
“We know carbon as graphite for our pencils, as diamonds, as soot,” Rocha said. “We can transform that soot or graphite into a nanometer-type material known as graphene.”
A single-walled carbon nanotube is created when a sheet of graphene is rolled up. The physical change alters the material’s chemical structure and determines how it behaves. The result is “one of the most heat conductive and electrically conductive materials in the world,” Rocha said. “These are properties that only come into play because they are at the nanometer scale.”
The RIT researchers created new techniques for manipulating the tiny materials. Rocha developed a method for isolating high-quality, single-walled carbon nanotubes and for sorting them according to their semiconductive or metallic properties. Rogers redistributed the pure carbon nanotubes into thin papers akin to carbon-copy paper.
“Once the papers are formed, now we have the adsorbent—what we use to pull the contaminants out of water,” Rogers said.
The filtration process works because “carbon nanotubes dislike water,” he added. Only the organic contaminants in the water stick to the nanotube, not the water molecules.
“This type of application has not been done before,” Rogers said. “Nanotubes used in this respect is new.”
This article has been republished from materials provided by Rochester Institute of Technology. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.
So, the contaminants will be in the air and your food instead of your water?
CC
Interesting.
Sounds like a mega version of the “Life Straw” used by hikers and campers to drink clean water from bad ponds and creeks.
Yep. If the filters and cleaning can be done cheaply, start buying desert islands that nobody wants currently. I understand this tech is capable of desalination. Desert coasts and islands will suddenly gain value.
Yes, and the filters are being produced in existing formats, meaning they are immediately interchangeable with filters currently in use, thereby eliminating the need for refitting desal plants.
But wait, there's more! In a convergence of leading edge technologies, the Koreans are working on producing cost effective carbon nanotube desal filters with 3D printing.
If they add a nano-coating of silver, then they’ve also got some good microbial qualities as well.
The “contaminants” are the ordinary salt ions in seawater. They are “contaminants” only in the sense that they make water non potable...., unless you view the salts in sea water as horrible life threatening contaminants....., in which case I suppose you vacation in the Mountains rather than the beach.
Hmmmm. I am either behind on my tech (the most likely) or confused about the claim that this has never been done before. I remember posting somewhere about the potential for desalination using graphene about 4 years ago. That may have been the initial research done on it, or more likely, this is a new engineering application.
This is -either way- wonderful. Lack of potable water is one of the greatest health issues in the world. The person who devises a way to treat water unsuitable for consumption and/or crop production will do a mercy and kindness to future generations that will exceed that of Pasteur, Salk, Fleming (discoverer of penicillin)and others combined.
The engineering genius and adaptability of men to subdue the earth is a thing of wonder. Hard not to be optimistic some times.
Ok, I get it. I do vacation on the beach- on the great lakes. Salt free, shark free!
=^)
CC
The day is young ... but that is probably the stupidest sentence I will read today.
Reads like a computer translation.
More silver is going up, kill it, graphene stories. (Not a criticism of OP)
love carbon nanotubes and graphene for desalination. both have been in the news for over a decade as being revolutionary membranes.
But neither of them ever seem to get from the labratory to the desalination plant.
there are still a number of manufacturing problems.
But wait, there’s more! In a convergence of leading edge technologies, the Koreans are working on producing cost effective carbon nanotube desal filters with 3D printing
...........
3d printing is really the ticket.
where did you read that?
carbon nanotubes have been in the lab news for a decade but they never make it to the desalination plants because of issues related to manufacturing.
Oh for an editor...I suppose the author meant “seemingly defies”...
If a thing exists in nature it must obey/be consistent with the rules of physics (aka God’s Laws)...That we may not fully understand those rules notwithstanding...
Good catch...Read the post but missed that one...
Bravo! This physical chemist (and Believer) salutes you, Eltee!
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