Now We Can Drink Seawater, Scientists Develop ‘Nanopores’ That Takes The Salt Out Of Seawater

The University of Illinois engineers has found an energy-efficient material for removing salt from seawater that could provide a negation to the phrase, “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” This technology is known as ‘Nanopores‘. Nanopores will filter the salt out of seawater and it is under very less cost. This filtered seawater helps people get access to drink and combat calamities.

'Nanopores' That Takes The Salt Out Of Seawater

The main function of Nanopores is that allows a high volume of water to pass through tiny holes blocking salt and other harmful contaminants. The materials used by the engineers is Nanometer, a thick sheet of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2) perforated with these nanopore holes. Removing salt from water is not something new, it could make a huge difference when it comes to processing large amounts of seawater.

Narayana Aluru, a professor of mechanical science and engineering at the University of Illinois, said, “Even though we have a lot of water on this planet, there is very little that is drinkable. If we could find a low-cost, efficient way to purify sea water, we would be making good strides in solving the water crisis. Finding materials for efficient desalination has been a big issue, and I think this work lays the foundation for next-generation materials.”

These materials are efficient in terms of energy usage and fouling, which are issues that have plagued desalination technology for a long time,” said Narayana. Conventional desalination depends on reverse osmosis to direct seawater through a thin plastic membrane, but the process has to face a number of blockages. In comparison, the extreme width of the molybdenum disulphide membrane reduces the flaws of the reverse osmosis, as it lets water move through with much less resistance.

Scientists Develop 'Nanopores' That Takes The Salt Out Of Seawater

Mohammad Heiranian, the first author of the study said, “MoS2 has inherent advantages in that the molybdenum in the centre attracts water, then the sulphur on the other side pushes it away, so we have much higher rate of water going through the pore. It’s inherent in the chemistry of MoS2 and the geometry of the pore, so we don’t have to functionalize the pore, which is a very complex process with graphene.”

“Nanotechnology could play a great role in reducing the cost of desalination plants and making them energy efficient. This type of thin membrane can increase return on investment because they are much more energy efficient,” said Amir Barati Farimani, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.

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