Always be careful of Chinese scientific literature.
***NTU is in Singapore, not China. But your bigotry is duly noted.
He wasn’t the only guy to think it was bogus because he thought it was Chinese. I did too. The Chinese aren’t world famous for original research and they have only recently begun to target desalination.
Singapore however is very different. They have a world class desalination program. Not only do their plants produce some of the cheapest desalinized water in the world—but their research is also first rate. So their guy might be on to something.
Desalination membrane research in the USA has been very hot lately. I’ve seen two published reports about world beating membranes. One from MIT
http://www.desalination.biz/news/news_story.asp?id=6791&title=MIT+engineers+tiny+graphene+desalination+membrane
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/smithsonian-nanoporous-graphene.html
The other is from Lockheed
http://www.pacetoday.com.au/news/lockheed-martin-awarded-patent-for-molecular-filtr
http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/lockheeds-better-faster-way-to-desalinate-water-15216615?click=pm_latest
Your guess is as good as mine as to what’s smoke and what’s fire. But the more announcements you see like this the greater are the chances that one will make the great breakthrough that allow fresh water to pass through a membrane without the need for great pumps pressure electricity and hugely added expense.
When that happens —the world changes in a very big way. Because then desalinized water becomes cheap enough for agriculture. You’re basically positioned to turn the world’s deserts green & double the size of the habitable planet.
(another invention will be need however to make this work. That will be something like thorium powered nuclear reactors which will collapse the cost of energy.)
Yes, Singapore. My bad.. Still, and all, Chinese scientific literature is extremely untrustworthy. I read a lot of it and this is true. They recognize this as well.
BRW, this is still hype of the first magnitude.