Nanotechnology for Water Filter

 

Nanotechnology has developed tremendously in the past decade and was able to create many new materials with a vast range of potential applications. Carbon nanotubes are an example of these new materials and consist of cylindrical molecules of carbon with diameters of a few nanometers -- one nanometer is one millionth of a millimeter. Carbon nanotubes possess exceptional electronic,, mechanical and chemical properties, for example they can be used to clean polluted water.

Among many potential applications, carbon nanotubes are great candidate materials for cleaning polluted water. Many water pollutants have very high affinity for carbon nanotubes and pollutants could be removed from contaminated water by filters made of this nanomaterial, for example water soluble drugs which can hardly be separated from water by activated carbon. Problems due to filters' saturation could be reduced as carbon nanotubes have a very large surface area (e.g. 500 m2 per gram of nanotube) and consequently a very high capacity to retain pollutants. "Maintenance and wastes related to water depollution could thus be reduced," says Thilo Hofmann, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Earth Sciences, Geography and Astronomy of the University of Vienna.

this has the potential to solve the water problems of the world, I wonder if this could be used in the desalination process to get drinking water from sea water - will search further

Nanotechnology for water Filter